ThéséevsthèsesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Thésée is a name, thèses is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Thésée” is a name and “thèses” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,072
“Thésée” frequency rank
#10,958
“thèses” frequency rank
50030
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Thésée thèses
Definition Fils d’Égée, époux de Phèdre qui affronta le Minotaure. Pluriel de thèse.

Where the eye mixes Thésée and thèses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Thésée (CCVCVV) and thèses (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
Thésée
6 ch
thèses

Look-alike desk: Thésée vs thèses

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Thésée is \te.ze\ while thèses is \tɛz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50030, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Thésée is recorded at frequency rank #39,072, classified as aname, pronounced \te.ze\. thèses is at rank #10,958, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɛz\.

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 50030, this pair ranks #165,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Thésée vs thèses

Shared letters: ehst. Private to "Thésée": é. Private to "thèses": è.

"Thésée" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV  ·  "thèses" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Thésée" for "thèses" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Thésée" is a name and "thèses" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Thésée" or "thèses" show up more?
"thèses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,958 in our French list, against #39,072 for "Thésée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Thésée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thèses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #165,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Thésée" and "thèses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Thésée vs tissée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #165,836 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