scellévsscelléeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: scellé is a noun, scellée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“scellé” is a noun and “scellée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,002
“scellé” frequency rank
#32,589
“scellée” frequency rank
49591
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature scellé scellée
Definition Deux cachets de cire reliés par un ruban que l’on appose à des serrures, à des armoires, etc., par autorité de justice, pour empêcher de les ouvrir. Féminin singulier de scellé.

Same sound, different letters: scellé vs scellée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. scellé runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against scellée's 7 (CCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
scellé
7 ch
scellée

Same sound, different spelling - scellé / scellée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: scellé and scellée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \se.le\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “scellé” sits inside “scellée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49591, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

scellé is recorded at frequency rank #17,002, classified as anoun, pronounced \se.le\. scellée is at rank #32,589, tagged as anadj, pronounced \se.le\.

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 49591, this pair ranks #169,393 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of scellé vs scellée

Shared letters: celsé. Private to "scellé": -. Private to "scellée": -.

"scellé" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "scellée" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "scellé" and "scellée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "scellé" is a noun and "scellée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "scellé" vs "scellée" - which ranks higher?
"scellé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,002 in our French list, against #32,589 for "scellée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "scellé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "scellée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #169,393 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "scellé" and "scellée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "scellée vs scellées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #169,393 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