questionvsquestionnéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: question is a noun, questionné is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“question” is a noun and “questionné” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#258
“question” frequency rank
#29,499
“questionné” frequency rank
29757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature question questionné
Definition Interrogation, demande que l’on fait pour s’informer de quelque chose. Participe passé masculin singulier de questionner.

Where the eye mixes question and questionné

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. question runs 8 letters (CVVCCVVC) against questionné's 10 (CVVCCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
question
10 ch
questionné

Look-alike desk: question vs questionné

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: question is \kɛs.tjɔ̃\ while questionné is \kɛs.tjɔ.ne\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “question” sits inside “questionné”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

question is recorded at frequency rank #258, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɛs.tjɔ̃\. questionné is at rank #29,499, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɛs.tjɔ.ne\.

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 29757, this pair ranks #314,688 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of question vs questionné

Shared letters: einoqstu. Private to "question": -. Private to "questionné": é.

"question" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC  ·  "questionné" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • question ← qeustion · qquestion · quesiton · quesstion · questino · questionn · questoin · questtion

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "question" for "questionné" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "question" is a noun and "questionné" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "question" or "questionné" show up more?
"question" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #258 in our French list, against #29,499 for "questionné". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "question" and "questionné" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "question" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "questionné" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #314,688 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "question" and "questionné" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "questionné vs questionnent". 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 #314,688 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