passionnévspassionsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7,213
“passionné” frequency rank
#7,736
“passions” frequency rank
14949
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature passionné passions
Definition Qui est rempli de passion, d’affection pour une personne ou pour une chose ; qui a une disposition naturelle à la passion. Pluriel de passion.

Where the eye mixes passionné and passions

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. passionné runs 9 letters (CVCCVVCCV) against passions's 8 (CVCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
passionné
8 ch
passions

Visual trap between passionné and passions

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: passionné is \pa.sjɔ.ne\ while passions is \pa.sjɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14949, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

passionné is recorded at frequency rank #7,213, classified as anadj, pronounced \pa.sjɔ.ne\. passions is at rank #7,736, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.sjɔ̃\.

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 14949, this pair ranks #394,517 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of passionné vs passions

Shared letters: ainops. Private to "passionné": é. Private to "passions": -.

"passionné" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV  ·  "passions" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passions ← apssions · pasions · pasisons · passinos · passionns · passionss · passiosn · passoins

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "passionné" and "passions" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "passionné" is an adjective and "passions" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "passionné" vs "passions" - which ranks higher?
"passionné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,213 in our French list, against #7,736 for "passions". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "passionné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "passions" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,517 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "passionné" and "passions" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parions vs passions". 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 #394,517 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