pavéevspavéesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#36,525
“pavée” frequency rank
#41,952
“pavées” frequency rank
78477
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pavée pavées
Definition Synonyme de digitale pourpre ou pourprée, Digitalis purpurea, plante de la famille des scrofulariacées. Féminin pluriel de pavé.

Same sound, different letters: pavée vs pavées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. pavée runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against pavées's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pavée
6 ch
pavées

Ear matches; page differs - pavée and pavées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: pavée and pavées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pa.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “pavée” sits inside “pavées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78477, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pavée is recorded at frequency rank #36,525, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.ve\. pavées is at rank #41,952, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pa.ve\.

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 78477, this pair ranks #25,632 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pavée vs pavées

Shared letters: aepvé. Private to "pavée": -. Private to "pavées": s.

"pavée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "pavées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pavée" and "pavées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pavée" is a noun and "pavées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pavée" or "pavées"?
"pavée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,525 in our French list, against #41,952 for "pavées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"pavée" and "pavées" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pavée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,632 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pavée" and "pavées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pactes vs pavées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #25,632 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