masquervsmasquésWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#13,210
“masquer” frequency rank
#25,040
“masqués” frequency rank
38250
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature masquer masqués
Definition Mettre un masque à quelqu’un. Masculin pluriel de masqué.

Same sound, different letters: masquer vs masqués

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

7 ch
masquer
7 ch
masqués

Homophone desk: masquer vs masqués

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: masquer and masqués carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mas.ke\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, 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 38250, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

masquer is recorded at frequency rank #13,210, classified as averb, 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 38250, this pair ranks #256,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of masquer vs masqués

Shared letters: amqsu. Private to "masquer": er. Private to "masqués": é.

"masquer" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "masqués" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • masqueramsquer · maqsuer · masqeur · masqquer · masquerr · masqure · massquer · masuqer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "masquer" and "masqués" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "masquer" is a verb and "masqués" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "masquer" or "masqués" show up more?
"masquer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,210 in our French list, against #25,040 for "masqués". 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 "masquer" 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 #256,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "masquer" and "masqués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "masquent vs masqués". 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 #256,618 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