surmontéevssurmontéesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#24,406
“surmontée” frequency rank
#37,574
“surmontées” frequency rank
61980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature surmontée surmontées
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de surmonter. Participe passé féminin pluriel de surmonter.

Same sound, different letters: surmontée vs surmontées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. surmontée runs 9 letters (CVCCVCCVV) against surmontées's 10 (CVCCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
surmontée
10 ch
surmontées

Ear matches; page differs - surmontée and surmontées

This is the hard kind. surmontée and surmontées are pronounced identically (\syʁ.mɔ̃.te\) and both work as averb. 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) - “surmontée” sits inside “surmontées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

surmontée is recorded at frequency rank #24,406, classified as averb, pronounced \syʁ.mɔ̃.te\. surmontées is at rank #37,574, tagged as averb, pronounced \syʁ.mɔ̃.te\.

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 61980, this pair ranks #89,459 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of surmontée vs surmontées

Shared letters: emnorstué. Private to "surmontée": -. Private to "surmontées": -.

"surmontée" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVV  ·  "surmontées" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "surmontée" and "surmontées" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\syʁ.mɔ̃.te\), 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, "surmontée" or "surmontées"?
"surmontée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,406 in our French list, against #37,574 for "surmontées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "surmontée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "surmontées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #89,459 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "surmontée" and "surmontées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "surmontées vs surmontés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #89,459 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