Which to use
“proteger” is a verb and “protégés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #38,990
- “proteger” frequency rank
- #7,224
- “protégés” frequency rank
- 46214
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | proteger | protégés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Protéger. | Masculin pluriel de protégé. |
Where the eye mixes proteger and protégés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. proteger and protégés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: proteger vs protégés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: proteger is \pro.te.ˈʒɛr\ while protégés is \pʁɔ.te.ʒe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46214, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
proteger is recorded at frequency rank #38,990, classified as averb, pronounced \pro.te.ˈʒɛr\. protégés is at rank #7,224, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁɔ.te.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 46214, this pair ranks #196,712 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of proteger vs protégés
Shared letters: goprt. Private to "proteger": e. Private to "protégés": sé.
"proteger" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC · "protégés" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- proteger ← porteger · pproteger · proetger · proteegr · protegerr · protegger · protegre · protgeer
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "proteger" for "protégés" ever safe?
Which is more common, "proteger" or "protégés"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "proteger" and "protégés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "proteger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "protégés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #196,712 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "proteger" and "protégés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "proteger vs protégera". 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 #196,712 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.