Which to use
“occupés” is an adjective and “occupez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,211
- “occupés” frequency rank
- #24,693
- “occupez” frequency rank
- 31904
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | occupés | occupez |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Masculin pluriel de occupé. | Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de occuper. |
Where the eye mixes occupés and occupez
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. occupés and occupez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses occupés with occupez
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: occupés is \ɔ.ky.pe\ while occupez is \o.ky.pe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31904, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
occupés is recorded at frequency rank #7,211, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.ky.pe\. occupez is at rank #24,693, tagged as averb, pronounced \o.ky.pe\.
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 31904, this pair ranks #300,817 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of occupés vs occupez
Shared letters: copu. Private to "occupés": sé. Private to "occupez": ez.
"occupés" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC · "occupez" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- occupez ← cocupez · occpuez · occuepz · occupezz · occuppez · occupze · ocucpez
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "occupés" and "occupez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "occupés" or "occupez" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "occupés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "occupez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #300,817 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "occupés" and "occupez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "occupais vs occupés". 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 #300,817 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.