tiercévstiersTell them apart

Quick tell: tiercé is a adjective, tiers is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#47,071
“tiercé” frequency rank
#1,643
“tiers” frequency rank
48714
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tiercé tiers
Definition Haussé d’un tiers, en parlant d’un prix. Partie d’une unité qui est subdivisée en trois parties égales ; résultat de la division par trois. 1/3.

Where the eye mixes tiercé and tiers

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. tiercé runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against tiers's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
tiercé
5 ch
tiers

Visual trap between tiercé and tiers

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tiercé is \tjɛʁ.se\ while tiers is \tjɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48714, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tiercé is recorded at frequency rank #47,071, classified as anadj, pronounced \tjɛʁ.se\. tiers is at rank #1,643, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tjɛʁ\.

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 48714, this pair ranks #176,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tiercé vs tiers

Shared letters: eirt. Private to "tiercé": cé. Private to "tiers": s.

"tiercé" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "tiers" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tiers ← iters · teirs · tierrs · tierss · tiesr · tires · ttiers

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tiercé" and "tiers" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tiercé" is an adjective and "tiers" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tiercé" or "tiers"?
"tiers" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,643 in our French list, against #47,071 for "tiercé". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "tiercé" and "tiers" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tiercé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tiers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #176,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tiercé" and "tiers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tice vs tiercé". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #176,618 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