serréevsserréesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14,564
“serrée” frequency rank
#23,692
“serrées” frequency rank
38256
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature serrée serrées
Definition Contraction. Pluriel de serrée.

Same sound, different letters: serrée vs serrées

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

6 ch
serrée
7 ch
serrées

Homophone desk: serrée vs serrées

This is the hard kind. serrée and serrées are pronounced identically (\se.ʁe\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “serrée” sits inside “serrées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38256, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

serrée is recorded at frequency rank #14,564, classified as anoun, pronounced \se.ʁe\. serrées is at rank #23,692, tagged as anoun, pronounced \se.ʁe\.

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 38256, this pair ranks #256,560 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of serrée vs serrées

Shared letters: ersé. Private to "serrée": -. Private to "serrées": -.

"serrée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "serrées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "serrée" for "serrées" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\se.ʁe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "serrée" or "serrées"?
"serrée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,564 in our French list, against #23,692 for "serrées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "serrée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "serrées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #256,560 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "serrée" and "serrées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "serrées vs serrez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #256,560 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