polluévspolluéeTell them apart

Quick tell: pollué is a verb, polluée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pollué” is a verb and “polluée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,308
“pollué” frequency rank
#35,648
“polluée” frequency rank
65956
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pollué polluée
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de polluer. Féminin singulier de pollué.

Same sound, different letters: pollué vs polluée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. pollué runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against polluée's 7 (CVCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
pollué
7 ch
polluée

Same sound, different spelling - pollué / polluée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: pollué and polluée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pɔ.lɥe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “pollué” sits inside “polluée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65956, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pollué is recorded at frequency rank #30,308, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔ.lɥe\. polluée is at rank #35,648, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɔ.lɥe\.

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 65956, this pair ranks #69,989 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pollué vs polluée

Shared letters: lopué. Private to "pollué": -. Private to "polluée": e.

"pollué" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "polluée" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pollué" and "polluée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pollué" is a verb and "polluée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pollué" or "polluée"?
"pollué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,308 in our French list, against #35,648 for "polluée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pollué" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "polluée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,989 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pollué" and "polluée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poilues vs polluée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,989 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