imagevsimagéeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#655
“image” frequency rank
#49,142
“imagée” frequency rank
49797
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature image imagée
Definition Représentation d’êtres ou d’objets par le dessin, la peinture, la sculpture, la gravure, la photographie, le cinéma, etc. Féminin singulier de imagé.

Where the eye mixes image and imagée

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

5 ch
image
6 ch
imagée

Visual trap between image and imagée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: image is \i.maʒ\ while imagée is \i.ma.ʒe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 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 49797, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

image is recorded at frequency rank #655, classified as anoun, pronounced \i.maʒ\. imagée is at rank #49,142, tagged as anadj, pronounced \i.ma.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 49797, this pair ranks #167,795 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of image vs imagée

Shared letters: aegim. Private to "image": -. Private to "imagée": é.

"image" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "imagée" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • imageiamge · imaeg · imagge · imgae · immage · miage

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "image" and "imagée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "image" is a noun and "imagée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "image" or "imagée"?
"image" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #655 in our French list, against #49,142 for "imagée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "image" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "imagée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #167,795 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "image" and "imagée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "imagée vs imaginée". 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 #167,795 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