recherchévsrecherchéesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#6,879
“recherché” frequency rank
#22,390
“recherchées” frequency rank
29269
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recherché recherchées
Definition Où il entre du raffinement. Féminin pluriel de recherché.

Same sound, different letters: recherché vs recherchées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. recherché runs 9 letters (CVCCVCCCV) against recherchées's 11 (CVCCVCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
recherché
11 ch
recherchées

Homophone desk: recherché vs recherchées

This is the hard kind. recherché and recherchées are pronounced identically (\ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “recherché” sits inside “recherchées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29269, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recherché is recorded at frequency rank #6,879, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\. 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 29269, this pair ranks #317,724 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of recherché vs recherchées

Shared letters: cehré. Private to "recherché": -. Private to "recherchées": s.

"recherché" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCCV  ·  "recherchées" · 11 letters · shape CVCCVCCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "recherché" and "recherchées" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "recherché" or "recherchées" show up more?
"recherché" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,879 in our French list, against #22,390 for "recherchées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recherché" 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 #317,724 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recherché" and "recherchées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recherchais vs recherchées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #317,724 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