expliquéevsexpliquerConfusable pair

Which to use

“expliquée” and “expliquer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#20,716
“expliquée” frequency rank
#1,112
“expliquer” frequency rank
21828
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature expliquée expliquer
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de expliquer. Rendre clair ; faire comprendre.

Same sound, different letters: expliquée vs expliquer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.

9 ch
expliquée
9 ch
expliquer

Same sound, different spelling - expliquée / expliquer

This is the hard kind. expliquée and expliquer are pronounced identically (\ɛk.spli.ke\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21828, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

expliquée is recorded at frequency rank #20,716, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛk.spli.ke\. expliquer is at rank #1,112, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛks.pli.ke\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 21828, this pair ranks #361,220 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of expliquée vs expliquer

Shared letters: eilpqux. Private to "expliquée": é. Private to "expliquer": r.

"expliquée" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVV  ·  "expliquer" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • expliquerepxliquer · exlpiquer · expilquer · expliqeur · expliqquer · expliquerr · expliqure · expliuqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "expliquée" and "expliquer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛk.spli.ke\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "expliquée" or "expliquer"?
"expliquer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,112 in our French list, against #20,716 for "expliquée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "expliquée" / "expliquer". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "expliquée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "expliquer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #361,220 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "expliquée" and "expliquer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "expliquée vs expliquées". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #361,220 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list