maquillévsmaquilléeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: maquillé is a adjective, maquillée is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“maquillé” is an adjective and “maquillée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,485
“maquillé” frequency rank
#36,041
“maquillée” frequency rank
72526
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maquillé maquillée
Definition Qui porte un maquillage. Participe passé féminin singulier de maquiller.

Same sound, different letters: maquillé vs maquillée

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

8 ch
maquillé
9 ch
maquillée

Homophone desk: maquillé vs maquillée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: maquillé and maquillée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ma.ki.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “maquillé” sits inside “maquillée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72526, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maquillé is recorded at frequency rank #36,485, classified as anadj, pronounced \ma.ki.je\. maquillée is at rank #36,041, tagged as averb, pronounced \ma.ki.je\.

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 72526, this pair ranks #43,711 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of maquillé vs maquillée

Shared letters: ailmqué. Private to "maquillé": -. Private to "maquillée": e.

"maquillé" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV  ·  "maquillée" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maquillé" and "maquillée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maquillé" is an adjective and "maquillée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "maquillé" or "maquillée"?
"maquillée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,041 in our French list, against #36,485 for "maquillé". 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 "maquillé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "maquillée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,711 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maquillé" and "maquillée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maquillée vs maquilleuse". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #43,711 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