mouillévsmouilléesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,622
“mouillé” frequency rank
#38,926
“mouillées” frequency rank
51548
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mouillé mouillées
Definition Qui est imbibé ou recouvert de gouttes de liquide, généralement de l’eau ; humide. Féminin pluriel de mouillé.

Same sound, different letters: mouillé vs mouillées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. mouillé runs 7 letters (CVVVCCV) against mouillées's 9 (CVVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
mouillé
9 ch
mouillées

Ear matches; page differs - mouillé and mouillées

This is the hard kind. mouillé and mouillées are pronounced identically (\mu.je\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “mouillé” sits inside “mouillées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51548, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mouillé is recorded at frequency rank #12,622, classified as anadj, pronounced \mu.je\. mouillées is at rank #38,926, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mu.je\.

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 51548, this pair ranks #154,185 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mouillé vs mouillées

Shared letters: ilmoué. Private to "mouillé": -. Private to "mouillées": es.

"mouillé" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV  ·  "mouillées" · 9 letters · shape CVVVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mouillé" for "mouillées" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mu.je\), 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 "mouillé" or "mouillées" show up more?
"mouillé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,622 in our French list, against #38,926 for "mouillées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mouillé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mouillées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #154,185 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mouillé" and "mouillées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mouillées vs mouillés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #154,185 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