tranchévstranchéesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#15,277
“tranché” frequency rank
#12,076
“tranchées” frequency rank
27353
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tranché tranchées
Definition Se dit d'un membre sectionné de façon nette à la suite de l’action d’une lame. Féminin pluriel de tranché.

Same sound, different letters: tranché vs tranchées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. tranché runs 7 letters (CCVCCCV) against tranchées's 9 (CCVCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
tranché
9 ch
tranchées

Ear matches; page differs - tranché and tranchées

This is the hard kind. tranché and tranchées are pronounced identically (\tʁɑ̃.ʃe\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “tranché” sits inside “tranchées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27353, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tranché is recorded at frequency rank #15,277, classified as anadj, pronounced \tʁɑ̃.ʃe\. tranchées is at rank #12,076, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tʁɑ̃.ʃe\.

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 27353, this pair ranks #329,529 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tranché vs tranchées

Shared letters: achnrté. Private to "tranché": -. Private to "tranchées": es.

"tranché" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV  ·  "tranchées" · 9 letters · shape CCVCCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tranché" and "tranchées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\tʁɑ̃.ʃe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "tranché" vs "tranchées" - which ranks higher?
"tranchées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,076 in our French list, against #15,277 for "tranché". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tranché" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tranchées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #329,529 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tranché" and "tranchées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "trance vs tranché". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #329,529 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