Which to use
“recherchais” is a verb and “recherchées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,676
- “recherchais” frequency rank
- #22,390
- “recherchées” frequency rank
- 67066
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | recherchais | recherchées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de rechercher. | Féminin pluriel de recherché. |
Where the eye mixes recherchais and recherchées
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. recherchais and recherchées follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between recherchais and recherchées
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: recherchais is \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃɛ\ while recherchées is \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 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 67066, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
recherchais is recorded at frequency rank #44,676, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃɛ\. recherchées is at rank #22,390, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\.
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 67066, this pair ranks #65,060 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of recherchais vs recherchées
Shared letters: cehrs. Private to "recherchais": ai. Private to "recherchées": é.
"recherchais" · 11 letters · shape CVCCVCCCVVC · "recherchées" · 11 letters · shape CVCCVCCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- recherchais ← ercherchais · rceherchais · reccherchais · recehrchais · rechecrhais · rechercahis · rechercchais · recherchaiss
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "recherchais" for "recherchées" ever safe?
Frequency check: "recherchais" vs "recherchées" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "recherchais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "recherchées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #65,060 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "recherchais" and "recherchées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recherchaient vs recherchais". 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 #65,060 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.