masquéevsmasquerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#33,345
“masquée” frequency rank
#13,210
“masquer” frequency rank
46555
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature masquée masquer
Definition Féminin singulier de masqué. Mettre un masque à quelqu’un.

Same sound, different letters: masquée vs masquer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. masquée (CVCCVVV) and masquer (CVCCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
masquée
7 ch
masquer

Homophone desk: masquée vs masquer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: masquée and masquer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mas.ke\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46555, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

masquée is recorded at frequency rank #33,345, classified as anadj, pronounced \mas.ke\. masquer is at rank #13,210, tagged as averb, pronounced \mas.ke\.

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 46555, this pair ranks #193,994 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of masquée vs masquer

Shared letters: aemqsu. Private to "masquée": é. Private to "masquer": r.

"masquée" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV  ·  "masquer" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • masquer ← amsquer · maqsuer · masqeur · masqquer · masquerr · masqure · massquer · masuqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "masquée" and "masquer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "masquée" is an adjective and "masquer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "masquée" or "masquer" show up more?
"masquer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,210 in our French list, against #33,345 for "masquée". 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 "masquée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "masquer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #193,994 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "masquée" and "masquer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "masquée vs moquée". 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 #193,994 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