jouéevsjouesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#13,198
“jouée” frequency rank
#5,471
“joues” frequency rank
18669
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jouée joues
Definition Paroi latérale d'une lucarne. Pluriel de joue.

Where the eye mixes jouée and joues

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
jouée
5 ch
joues

Why the eye confuses jouée with joues

A purely visual mix-up. jouée (\ʒwe\) and joues (\ʒu\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18669, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jouée is recorded at frequency rank #13,198, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒwe\. joues is at rank #5,471, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒu\.

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 18669, this pair ranks #377,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of jouée vs joues

Shared letters: ejou. Private to "jouée": é. Private to "joues": s.

"jouée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV  ·  "joues" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jouesjjoues · joeus · jouess · jouse · juoes · ojues

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "jouée" and "joues" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʒwe\ versus \ʒu\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "jouée" or "joues"?
"joues" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,471 in our French list, against #13,198 for "jouée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "jouée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "joues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #377,126 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jouée" and "joues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Josie vs jouée". 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 #377,126 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