mouillervsmouillésTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#16,187
“mouiller” frequency rank
#23,946
“mouillés” frequency rank
40133
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mouiller mouillés
Definition Rendre humide, imbiber un objet de liquide. Masculin pluriel de mouillé.

Same sound, different letters: mouiller vs mouillés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. mouiller and mouillés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
mouiller
8 ch
mouillés

Homophone desk: mouiller vs mouillés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: mouiller and mouillés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mu.je\. 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 40133, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mouiller is recorded at frequency rank #16,187, classified as averb, pronounced \mu.je\. mouillés is at rank #23,946, 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 40133, this pair ranks #242,795 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mouiller vs mouillés

Shared letters: ilmou. Private to "mouiller": er. Private to "mouillés": sé.

"mouiller" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC  ·  "mouillés" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mouiller ← mmouiller · moiuller · mouilelr · mouiler · mouillerr · mouillre · mouliler · muoiller

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mouiller" and "mouillés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mouiller" is a verb and "mouillés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mouiller" or "mouillés"?
"mouiller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,187 in our French list, against #23,946 for "mouillés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mouiller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mouillés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #242,795 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mouiller" and "mouillés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mouillées vs mouillés". 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 #242,795 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