imprévuesvsimprévusWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,810
“imprévues” frequency rank
#23,897
“imprévus” frequency rank
64707
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature imprévues imprévus
Definition Féminin pluriel de imprévu. Masculin pluriel de imprévu.

Same sound, different letters: imprévues vs imprévus

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

9 ch
imprévues
8 ch
imprévus

Same sound, different spelling - imprévues / imprévus

This is the hard kind. imprévues and imprévus are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃.pʁe.vy\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64707, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

imprévues is recorded at frequency rank #40,810, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pʁe.vy\. imprévus is at rank #23,897, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pʁe.vy\.

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 64707, this pair ranks #75,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of imprévues vs imprévus

Shared letters: imprsuvé. Private to "imprévues": e. Private to "imprévus": -.

"imprévues" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVC  ·  "imprévus" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "imprévues" and "imprévus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛ̃.pʁe.vy\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "imprévues" vs "imprévus" - which ranks higher?
"imprévus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,897 in our French list, against #40,810 for "imprévues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "imprévues" / "imprévus". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "imprévues" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "imprévus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "imprévues" and "imprévus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "imprégnés vs imprévues". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #75,732 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