préciservsprécisésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,419
“préciser” frequency rank
#38,991
“précisés” frequency rank
42410
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature préciser précisés
Definition Fixer, déterminer davantage, voire exactement. Participe passé masculin pluriel de préciser.

Same sound, different letters: préciser vs précisés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. préciser and précisés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
préciser
8 ch
précisés

Same sound, different spelling - préciser / précisés

This is the hard kind. préciser and précisés are pronounced identically (\pʁe.si.ze\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42410, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

préciser is recorded at frequency rank #3,419, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁe.si.ze\. précisés is at rank #38,991, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁe.si.ze\.

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 42410, this pair ranks #225,809 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of préciser vs précisés

Shared letters: ciprsé. Private to "préciser": e. Private to "précisés": -.

"préciser" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC  ·  "précisés" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "préciser" and "précisés" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁe.si.ze\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "préciser" vs "précisés" - which ranks higher?
"préciser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,419 in our French list, against #38,991 for "précisés". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "préciser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "précisés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #225,809 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "préciser" and "précisés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "précisés vs précitée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #225,809 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