polluéevspolluésConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#35,648
“polluée” frequency rank
#40,931
“pollués” frequency rank
76579
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Same sound, different letters: polluée vs pollués

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

7 ch
polluée
7 ch
pollués

Ear matches; page differs - polluée and pollués

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: polluée and pollués carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pɔ.lɥe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “polluée” becomes s in “pollués”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76579, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

polluée is recorded at frequency rank #35,648, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɔ.lɥe\. pollués is at rank #40,931, 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 76579, this pair ranks #30,721 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of polluée vs pollués

Shared letters: lopué. Private to "polluée": e. Private to "pollués": s.

"polluée" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV  ·  "pollués" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "polluée" for "pollués" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "polluée" is an adjective and "pollués" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "polluée" or "pollués" show up more?
"polluée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,648 in our French list, against #40,931 for "pollués". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "polluée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pollués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,721 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "polluée" and "pollués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poilues vs pollués". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #30,721 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