mutilévsmutilésTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,272
“mutilé” frequency rank
#33,358
“mutilés” frequency rank
63630
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mutilé mutilés
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe mutiler. Participe passé masculin pluriel de mutiler.

Same sound, different letters: mutilé vs mutilés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. mutilé runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against mutilés's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
mutilé
7 ch
mutilés

Same sound, different spelling - mutilé / mutilés

This is the hard kind. mutilé and mutilés are pronounced identically (\my.ti.le\) and both work as averb. 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) - “mutilé” sits inside “mutilés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63630, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mutilé is recorded at frequency rank #30,272, classified as averb, pronounced \my.ti.le\. mutilés is at rank #33,358, tagged as averb, pronounced \my.ti.le\.

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 63630, this pair ranks #81,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mutilé vs mutilés

Shared letters: ilmtué. Private to "mutilé": -. Private to "mutilés": s.

"mutilé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "mutilés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mutilé" and "mutilés" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\my.ti.le\), 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 "mutilé" or "mutilés" show up more?
"mutilé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,272 in our French list, against #33,358 for "mutilés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "mutilé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mutilés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,009 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mutilé" and "mutilés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mutilés vs mutins". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #81,009 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