Which to use
“travailler” is a verb and “travaillés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #780
- “travailler” frequency rank
- #26,566
- “travaillés” frequency rank
- 27346
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | travailler | travaillés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tourmenter ; soumettre à une gêne ; causer de la peine ; torturer psychologiquement. | Masculin pluriel de travaillé. |
Same sound, different letters: travailler vs travaillés
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. travailler and travaillés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Homophone desk: travailler vs travaillés
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: travailler and travaillés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tʁa.va.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27346, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
travailler is recorded at frequency rank #780, classified as averb, pronounced \tʁa.va.je\. travaillés is at rank #26,566, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tʁa.va.je\.
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 27346, this pair ranks #329,577 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of travailler vs travaillés
Shared letters: ailrtv. Private to "travailler": e. Private to "travaillés": sé.
"travailler" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVVCCVC · "travaillés" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- travailler ← rtavailler · tarvailler · traaviller · travailelr · travailer · travaillerr · travaillre · travaliler
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "travailler" and "travaillés" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "travailler" or "travaillés" show up more?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "travailler" / "travaillés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "travailler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "travaillés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #329,577 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "travailler" and "travaillés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "travaillés vs travailleuse". 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 #329,577 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.