tentéevstentéesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#23,391
“tentée” frequency rank
#41,039
“tentées” frequency rank
64430
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tentée tentées
Definition Féminin singulier de tenté. Participe passé féminin pluriel de tenter.

Same sound, different letters: tentée vs tentées

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

6 ch
tentée
7 ch
tentées

Ear matches; page differs - tentée and tentées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: tentée and tentées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tɑ̃.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “tentée” sits inside “tentées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64430, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tentée is recorded at frequency rank #23,391, classified as anadj, pronounced \tɑ̃.te\. tentées is at rank #41,039, tagged as averb, pronounced \tɑ̃.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 64430, this pair ranks #77,122 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tentée vs tentées

Shared letters: enté. Private to "tentée": -. Private to "tentées": s.

"tentée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "tentées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tentée" for "tentées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tentée" is an adjective and "tentées" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tentée" or "tentées"?
"tentée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,391 in our French list, against #41,039 for "tentées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "tentée" / "tentées". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tentée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tentées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #77,122 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tentée" and "tentées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tentais vs tentées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #77,122 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