gardéevsgardezWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: gardée is a adjective, gardez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gardée” is an adjective and “gardez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,373
“gardée” frequency rank
#9,169
“gardez” frequency rank
25542
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gardée gardez
Definition Féminin singulier de gardé. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de garder.

Same sound, different letters: gardée vs gardez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
gardée
6 ch
gardez

Homophone desk: gardée vs gardez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: gardée and gardez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɡaʁ.de\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25542, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gardée is recorded at frequency rank #16,373, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɡaʁ.de\. gardez is at rank #9,169, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɡaʁ.de\.

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 25542, this pair ranks #340,285 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gardée vs gardez

Shared letters: adegr. Private to "gardée": é. Private to "gardez": z.

"gardée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "gardez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gardezagrdez · gadrez · garddez · gardezz · gardze · garedz · garrdez · ggardez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gardée" for "gardez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gardée" is an adjective and "gardez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "gardée" or "gardez" show up more?
"gardez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,169 in our French list, against #16,373 for "gardée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gardée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gardez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,285 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gardée" and "gardez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gardée vs garner". 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 #340,285 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