menéevsmenésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: menée is a noun, menés is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“menée” is a noun and “menés” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,351
“menée” frequency rank
#10,358
“menés” frequency rank
14709
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature menée menés
Definition Pratique secrète et artificieuse dont on se sert pour faire réussir un projet. Participe passé masculin pluriel de mener.

Same sound, different letters: menée vs menés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

5 ch
menée
5 ch
menés

Ear matches; page differs - menée and menés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: menée and menés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mə.ne\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “menée” becomes s in “menés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14709, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

menée is recorded at frequency rank #4,351, classified as anoun, pronounced \mə.ne\. menés is at rank #10,358, tagged as averb, pronounced \mə.ne\.

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 14709, this pair ranks #395,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of menée vs menés

Shared letters: emné. Private to "menée": -. Private to "menés": s.

"menée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "menés" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "menée" for "menés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "menée" is a noun and "menés" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "menée" vs "menés" - which ranks higher?
"menée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,351 in our French list, against #10,358 for "menés". 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 "menée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "menés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "menée" and "menés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Meier vs menés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #395,524 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