recherchéevsrecherchezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: recherchée is a adjective, recherchez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#16,224
“recherchée” frequency rank
#23,336
“recherchez” frequency rank
39560
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recherchée recherchez
Definition Féminin singulier de recherché. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de rechercher.

Same sound, different letters: recherchée vs recherchez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. recherchée (CVCCVCCCVV) and recherchez (CVCCVCCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

10 ch
recherchée
10 ch
recherchez

Ear matches; page differs - recherchée and recherchez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: recherchée and recherchez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, 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 39560, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recherchée is recorded at frequency rank #16,224, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.ʃɛʁ.ʃe\. recherchez is at rank #23,336, tagged as averb, 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 39560, this pair ranks #247,057 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of recherchée vs recherchez

Shared letters: cehr. Private to "recherchée": é. Private to "recherchez": z.

"recherchée" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCCVV  ·  "recherchez" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recherchez ← ercherchez · rceherchez · reccherchez · recehrchez · rechecrhez · rechercchez · rechercehz · recherchezz

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "recherchée" for "recherchez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "recherchée" is an adjective and "recherchez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "recherchée" vs "recherchez" - which ranks higher?
"recherchée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,224 in our French list, against #23,336 for "recherchez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recherchée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "recherchez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #247,057 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recherchée" and "recherchez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recherchées vs recherchez". 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 #247,057 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