masquéevsmasquésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#33,345
“masquée” frequency rank
#25,040
“masqués” frequency rank
58385
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature masquée masqués
Definition Féminin singulier de masqué. Masculin pluriel de masqué.

Same sound, different letters: masquée vs masqués

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

7 ch
masquée
7 ch
masqués

Ear matches; page differs - masquée and masqués

This is the hard kind. masquée and masqués are pronounced identically (\mas.ke\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “masquée” becomes s in “masqués”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58385, 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\. masqués is at rank #25,040, tagged as anadj, 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 58385, this pair ranks #109,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of masquée vs masqués

Shared letters: amqsué. Private to "masquée": e. Private to "masqués": -.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "masquée" and "masqués" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mas.ke\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "masquée" vs "masqués" - which ranks higher?
"masqués" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,040 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.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "masquée" / "masqués". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "masquée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "masqués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #109,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "masquée" and "masqués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "masquée vs moquée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #109,368 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