forcevsforcéesConfusable pair

Quick tell: force is a noun, forcées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“force” is a noun and “forcées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#490
“force” frequency rank
#20,146
“forcées” frequency rank
20636
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature force forcées
Definition Faculté naturelle d’agir vigoureusement, en particulier en parlant de l’être humain et des animaux. Féminin pluriel de forcé.

Where the eye mixes force and forcées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
force
7 ch
forcées

Look-alike desk: force vs forcées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: force is \fɔʁs\ while forcées is \fɔʁ.se\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20636, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

force is recorded at frequency rank #490, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɔʁs\. forcées is at rank #20,146, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fɔʁ.se\.

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 20636, this pair ranks #367,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of force vs forcées

Shared letters: cefor. Private to "force": -. Private to "forcées": .

"force" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "forcées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • forcefforce · focre · forcce · forec · forrce · froce · ofrce

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "force" for "forcées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "force" is a noun and "forcées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "force" or "forcées"?
"force" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #490 in our French list, against #20,146 for "forcées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "force" and "forcées" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "force" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "forcées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #367,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "force" and "forcées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "forcées vs foulées". 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 #367,283 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