prolongervsprolongésConfusable pair

Quick tell: prolonger is a verb, prolongés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#8,016
“prolonger” frequency rank
#37,494
“prolongés” frequency rank
45510
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prolonger prolongés
Definition Faire durer plus longtemps. Masculin pluriel de prolongé.

Same sound, different letters: prolonger vs prolongés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. prolonger and prolongés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
prolonger
9 ch
prolongés

Homophone desk: prolonger vs prolongés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: prolonger and prolongés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pʁɔ.lɔ̃.ʒe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prolonger is recorded at frequency rank #8,016, classified as averb, pronounced \pʁɔ.lɔ̃.ʒe\. prolongés is at rank #37,494, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁɔ.lɔ̃.ʒe\.

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 45510, this pair ranks #202,213 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prolonger vs prolongés

Shared letters: glnopr. Private to "prolonger": e. Private to "prolongés": sé.

"prolonger" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCCVC  ·  "prolongés" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prolonger ← porlonger · pprolonger · prloonger · prollonger · prolnoger · prologner · prolonegr · prolongerr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prolonger" for "prolongés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prolonger" is a verb and "prolongés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "prolonger" or "prolongés"?
"prolonger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,016 in our French list, against #37,494 for "prolongés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"prolonger" and "prolongés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prolonger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prolongés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #202,213 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prolonger" and "prolongés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prolongera vs prolongés". 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 #202,213 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