progressévsprogresserWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,448
“progressé” frequency rank
#7,103
“progresser” frequency rank
20551
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature progressé progresser
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de progresser. Faire des progrès.

Same sound, different letters: progressé vs progresser

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.

9 ch
progressé
10 ch
progresser

Ear matches; page differs - progressé and progresser

This is the hard kind. progressé and progresser are pronounced identically (\pʁɔ.ɡʁe.se\) 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 20551, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

progressé is recorded at frequency rank #13,448, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁɔ.ɡʁe.se\. progresser is at rank #7,103, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁɔ.ɡʁe.se\.

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 20551, this pair ranks #367,706 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of progressé vs progresser

Shared letters: egoprs. Private to "progressé": é. Private to "progresser": -.

"progressé" · 9 letters · shape CCVCCVCCV  ·  "progresser" · 10 letters · shape CCVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • progresserporgresser · pprogresser · prgoresser · progersser · proggresser · progreser · progresesr · progresserr

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "progressé" and "progresser" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁɔ.ɡʁe.se\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "progressé" or "progresser"?
"progresser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,103 in our French list, against #13,448 for "progressé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "progressé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "progresser" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #367,706 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "progressé" and "progresser" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "progress vs progressé". 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 #367,706 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