muscléevsmuscléesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#28,259
“musclée” frequency rank
#43,569
“musclées” frequency rank
71828
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature musclée musclées
Definition Féminin singulier de musclé. Féminin pluriel de musclé.

Same sound, different letters: musclée vs musclées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. musclée runs 7 letters (CVCCCVV) against musclées's 8 (CVCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
musclée
8 ch
musclées

Ear matches; page differs - musclée and musclées

This is the hard kind. musclée and musclées are pronounced identically (\mys.kle\) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “musclée” sits inside “musclées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71828, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

musclée is recorded at frequency rank #28,259, classified as anadj, pronounced \mys.kle\. musclées is at rank #43,569, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mys.kle\.

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 71828, this pair ranks #46,142 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of musclée vs musclées

Shared letters: celmsué. Private to "musclée": -. Private to "musclées": -.

"musclée" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVV  ·  "musclées" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "musclée" for "musclées" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mys.kle\), 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 "musclée" or "musclées" show up more?
"musclée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,259 in our French list, against #43,569 for "musclées". 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 "musclée" / "musclées". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "musclée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "musclées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,142 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "musclée" and "musclées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "musclées vs muscler". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #46,142 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