justesvsjustesseTell them apart

Quick tell: justes is a adjective, justesse is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#9,863
“justes” frequency rank
#9,185
“justesse” frequency rank
19048
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature justes justesse
Definition Pluriel de l’adjectif juste. Qualité de ce qui est juste, exact, convenable, tel qu’il doit être.

Where the eye mixes justes and justesse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
justes
8 ch
justesse

Visual trap between justes and justesse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: justes is \ʒyst\ while justesse is \ʒys.tɛs\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “justes” sits inside “justesse”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19048, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

justes is recorded at frequency rank #9,863, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʒyst\. justesse is at rank #9,185, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒys.tɛs\.

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 19048, this pair ranks #375,301 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of justes vs justesse

Shared letters: ejstu. Private to "justes": -. Private to "justesse": -.

"justes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "justesse" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • justesjjustes · jsutes · jusets · jusstes · justess · justse · justtes · jutses
  • justessejjustesse · jsutesse · jusetsse · jusstesse · justese · justeses · justsese · justtesse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "justes" and "justesse" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "justes" is an adjective and "justesse" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "justes" or "justesse" show up more?
"justesse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,185 in our French list, against #9,863 for "justes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "justes" and "justesse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "justes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "justesse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #375,301 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "justes" and "justesse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "justes vs justices". 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 #375,301 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