importéevsimportéesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#28,995
“importée” frequency rank
#28,598
“importées” frequency rank
57593
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature importée importées
Definition Féminin singulier de importé. Féminin pluriel de importé.

Same sound, different letters: importée vs importées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. importée runs 8 letters (VCCVCCVV) against importées's 9 (VCCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
importée
9 ch
importées

Homophone desk: importée vs importées

This is the hard kind. importée and importées are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃.pɔʁ.te\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “importée” sits inside “importées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57593, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

importée is recorded at frequency rank #28,995, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁ.te\. importées is at rank #28,598, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁ.te\.

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 57593, this pair ranks #114,096 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of importée vs importées

Shared letters: eimoprté. Private to "importée": -. Private to "importées": s.

"importée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV  ·  "importées" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "importée" and "importées" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛ̃.pɔʁ.te\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "importée" or "importées"?
"importées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,598 in our French list, against #28,995 for "importée". 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 "importée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "importées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #114,096 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "importée" and "importées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "importée vs importent". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #114,096 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