pauméevspaumésWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: paumée is a noun, paumés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#37,471
“paumée” frequency rank
#39,447
“paumés” frequency rank
76918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paumée paumés
Definition Engagement conclu par des contractants qui se frappent la paume de la main. Masculin pluriel de paumé.

Same sound, different letters: paumée vs paumés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. paumée (CVVCVV) and paumés (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
paumée
6 ch
paumés

Homophone desk: paumée vs paumés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: paumée and paumés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \po.me\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “paumée” becomes s in “paumés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paumée is recorded at frequency rank #37,471, classified as anoun, pronounced \po.me\. paumés is at rank #39,447, tagged as anadj, pronounced \po.me\.

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 76918, this pair ranks #29,825 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paumée vs paumés

Shared letters: ampué. Private to "paumée": e. Private to "paumés": s.

"paumée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "paumés" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paumée" for "paumés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paumée" is a noun and "paumés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "paumée" or "paumés"?
"paumée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,471 in our French list, against #39,447 for "paumés". 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 "paumée" / "paumés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paumée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "paumés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,825 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paumée" and "paumés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pactes vs paumés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #29,825 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