plongéevsplongésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: plongée is a noun, plongés is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“plongée” is a noun and “plongés” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,739
“plongée” frequency rank
#28,692
“plongés” frequency rank
36431
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature plongée plongés
Definition Action de plonger ; état de celui qui plonge. Participe passé masculin pluriel de plonger.

Same sound, different letters: plongée vs plongés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. plongée (CCVCCVV) and plongés (CCVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
plongée
7 ch
plongés

Ear matches; page differs - plongée and plongés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: plongée and plongés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \plɔ̃.ʒe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “plongée” becomes s in “plongés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36431, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

plongée is recorded at frequency rank #7,739, classified as anoun, pronounced \plɔ̃.ʒe\. plongés is at rank #28,692, tagged as averb, pronounced \plɔ̃.ʒe\.

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 36431, this pair ranks #269,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of plongée vs plongés

Shared letters: glnopé. Private to "plongée": e. Private to "plongés": s.

"plongée" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVV  ·  "plongés" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "plongée" for "plongés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "plongée" is a noun and "plongés" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "plongée" or "plongés" show up more?
"plongée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,739 in our French list, against #28,692 for "plongés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "plongée" / "plongés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "plongée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plongés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #269,673 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "plongée" and "plongés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plongeons vs plongés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #269,673 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