polluévspolluerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“pollué” and “polluer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,308
“pollué” frequency rank
#29,084
“polluer” frequency rank
59392
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pollué polluer
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de polluer. Rejeter des produits nocifs dans l’environnement.

Same sound, different letters: pollué vs polluer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. pollué runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against polluer's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
pollué
7 ch
polluer

Ear matches; page differs - pollué and polluer

This is the hard kind. pollué and polluer are pronounced identically (\pɔ.lɥe\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59392, 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\. polluer is at rank #29,084, tagged as averb, 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 59392, this pair ranks #103,417 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pollué vs polluer

Shared letters: lopu. Private to "pollué": é. Private to "polluer": er.

"pollué" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "polluer" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • polluer ← oplluer · ploluer · polleur · polluerr · pollure · poluer · poluler · ppolluer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pollué" and "polluer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pɔ.lɥe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "pollué" vs "polluer" - which ranks higher?
"polluer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,084 in our French list, against #30,308 for "pollué". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"pollué" and "polluer" 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 "polluer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,417 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pollué" and "polluer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poilues vs pollué". 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 #103,417 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