menacéevsmenacésTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,513
“menacée” frequency rank
#13,004
“menacés” frequency rank
22517
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature menacée menacés
Definition Féminin singulier de menacé. Masculin pluriel de menacé.

Same sound, different letters: menacée vs menacés

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

7 ch
menacée
7 ch
menacés

Same sound, different spelling - menacée / menacés

This is the hard kind. menacée and menacés are pronounced identically (\mə.na.se\) 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 “menacée” becomes s in “menacés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22517, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

menacée is recorded at frequency rank #9,513, classified as anadj, pronounced \mə.na.se\. menacés is at rank #13,004, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mə.na.se\.

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 22517, this pair ranks #357,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of menacée vs menacés

Shared letters: acemné. Private to "menacée": -. Private to "menacés": s.

"menacée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "menacés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "menacée" for "menacés" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mə.na.se\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "menacée" or "menacés" show up more?
"menacée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,513 in our French list, against #13,004 for "menacés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "menacée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "menacés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #357,570 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "menacée" and "menacés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "menacés vs mendès". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #357,570 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