gorgevsgorgéeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,614
“gorge” frequency rank
#21,638
“gorgée” frequency rank
25252
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gorge gorgée
Definition Partie antérieure du cou de l’homme ou de l’animal. Quantité de liquide que l’on peut avaler en une seule fois.

Where the eye mixes gorge and gorgée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. gorge runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against gorgée's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
gorge
6 ch
gorgée

Visual trap between gorge and gorgée

A purely visual mix-up. gorge (\ɡɔʁʒ\) and gorgée (\ɡɔʁ.ʒe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25252, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gorge is recorded at frequency rank #3,614, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔʁʒ\. gorgée is at rank #21,638, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔʁ.ʒe\.

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 25252, this pair ranks #341,908 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gorge vs gorgée

Shared letters: egor. Private to "gorge": -. Private to "gorgée": é.

"gorge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "gorgée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gorge ← ggorge · gogre · goreg · gorgge · gorrge · groge · ogrge

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gorge" and "gorgée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɡɔʁʒ\ versus \ɡɔʁ.ʒe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "gorge" or "gorgée" show up more?
"gorge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,614 in our French list, against #21,638 for "gorgée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gorge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gorgée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #341,908 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gorge" and "gorgée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gorgée vs gorgées". 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 #341,908 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