menacervsmenacésWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#10,357
“menacer” frequency rank
#13,004
“menacés” frequency rank
23361
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature menacer menacés
Definition Se proposer intempestivement de faire. Masculin pluriel de menacé.

Same sound, different letters: menacer vs menacés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. menacer and menacés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
menacer
7 ch
menacés

Ear matches; page differs - menacer and menacés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: menacer and menacés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mə.na.se\. 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 23361, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

menacer is recorded at frequency rank #10,357, classified as averb, 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 23361, this pair ranks #352,955 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of menacer vs menacés

Shared letters: acemn. Private to "menacer": r. Private to "menacés": sé.

"menacer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "menacés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • menacer ← emnacer · meancer · menaccer · menacerr · menacre · menaecr · mencaer · mennacer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "menacer" and "menacés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "menacer" is a verb and "menacés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "menacer" or "menacés"?
"menacer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,357 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.

What to do next

"menacer" and "menacés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "menacer" 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 #352,955 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "menacer" and "menacés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "menacés vs mendès". 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 #352,955 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