ordonnévsordonnéeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ordonné is a adjective, ordonnée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ordonné” is an adjective and “ordonnée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,481
“ordonné” frequency rank
#19,357
“ordonnée” frequency rank
24838
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ordonné ordonnée
Definition Qui est dans un ordre donné. Position d’un point d’un plan par rapport au deuxième axe, en général représenté verticalement (axe des y), la position par rapport au premier axe étant l’abscisse.

Same sound, different letters: ordonné vs ordonnée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

7 ch
ordonné
8 ch
ordonnée

Same sound, different spelling - ordonné / ordonnée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: ordonné and ordonnée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɔʁ.dɔ.ne\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ordonné” sits inside “ordonnée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24838, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ordonné is recorded at frequency rank #5,481, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔʁ.dɔ.ne\. ordonnée is at rank #19,357, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁ.dɔ.ne\.

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 24838, this pair ranks #344,291 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ordonné vs ordonnée

Shared letters: dnoré. Private to "ordonné": -. Private to "ordonnée": e.

"ordonné" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "ordonnée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ordonné" for "ordonnée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ordonné" is an adjective and "ordonnée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ordonné" or "ordonnée" show up more?
"ordonné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,481 in our French list, against #19,357 for "ordonnée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ordonné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ordonnée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #344,291 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ordonné" and "ordonnée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ordonnée vs ordonnent". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #344,291 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