polluentvspolluésTell them apart

Which to use

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

#44,103
“polluent” frequency rank
#40,931
“pollués” frequency rank
85034
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature polluent pollués
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de polluer. Participe passé masculin pluriel de polluer.

Where the eye mixes polluent and pollués

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. polluent runs 8 letters (CVCCVVCC) against pollués's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
polluent
7 ch
pollués

Look-alike desk: polluent vs pollués

A purely visual mix-up. polluent (\pɔ.ly\) and pollués (\pɔ.lɥe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85034, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

polluent is recorded at frequency rank #44,103, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔ.ly\. 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 85034, this pair ranks #11,982 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of polluent vs pollués

Shared letters: lopu. Private to "polluent": ent. Private to "pollués": sé.

"polluent" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCC  ·  "pollués" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • polluent ← oplluent · ploluent · polleunt · polluennt · polluentt · polluetn · pollunet · poluent

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "polluent" and "pollués" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɔ.ly\ versus \pɔ.lɥe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "polluent" vs "pollués" - which ranks higher?
"pollués" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,931 in our French list, against #44,103 for "polluent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "polluent" 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 #11,982 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "polluent" and "pollués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "polluées vs polluent". 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 #11,982 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