jouvsjouéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: jou is a pronoun, jouée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“jou” is a pronoun and “jouée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,878
“jou” frequency rank
#13,198
“jouée” frequency rank
52076
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jou jouée
Definition Pronom personnel objet de la deuxième personne du singulier : te. Paroi latérale d'une lucarne.

Letter map: jou vs jouée

Shared letters muted; letters that set jou and jouée apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. jou runs 3 letters (CVV) against jouée's 5 (CVVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
jou
5 ch
jouée

Grammar separator: jou vs jouée

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: jou is apronoun and jouéeanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “jou” sits inside “jouée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52076, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jou is recorded at frequency rank #38,878, classified as apron. jouée is at rank #13,198, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒwe\.

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 52076, this pair ranks #150,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of jou vs jouée

Shared letters: jou. Private to "jou": -. Private to "jouée": eé.

"jou" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "jouée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "jou" for "jouée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "jou" is a pronoun and "jouée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "jou" or "jouée" show up more?
"jouée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,198 in our French list, against #38,878 for "jou". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "jou" and "jouée".

  • Full dictionary entry for "jou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "jouée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #150,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jou" and "jouée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jor vs jou". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #150,343 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