harcelervsharcelésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#13,809
“harceler” frequency rank
#47,371
“harcelés” frequency rank
61180
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature harceler harcelés
Definition Tourmenter une personne, ou un animal, en le poursuivant sans relâche, en le malmenant. Participe passé masculin pluriel de harceler.

Same sound, different letters: harceler vs harcelés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. harceler and harcelés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
harceler
8 ch
harcelés

Same sound, different spelling - harceler / harcelés

This is the hard kind. harceler and harcelés are pronounced identically (^((h aspiré))\aʁ.sə.le\) 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 61180, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

harceler is recorded at frequency rank #13,809, classified as averb, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\aʁ.sə.le\. harcelés is at rank #47,371, tagged as averb, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\aʁ.sə.le\.

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 61180, this pair ranks #93,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of harceler vs harcelés

Shared letters: acehlr. Private to "harceler": -. Private to "harcelés": sé.

"harceler" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "harcelés" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • harceler ← ahrceler · hacreler · harcceler · harceelr · harcelerr · harceller · harcelre · harcleer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "harceler" and "harcelés" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (^((h aspiré))\aʁ.sə.le\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "harceler" or "harcelés" show up more?
"harceler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,809 in our French list, against #47,371 for "harcelés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"harceler" and "harcelés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "harceler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "harcelés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #93,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "harceler" and "harcelés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harcèlent vs harcelés". 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 #93,659 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