trempervstrempésTell them apart

Quick tell: tremper is a verb, trempés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#20,876
“tremper” frequency rank
#35,758
“trempés” frequency rank
56634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tremper trempés
Definition Mouiller une chose en la mettant dans quelque liquide. Masculin pluriel de trempé.

Same sound, different letters: tremper vs trempés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. tremper and trempés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
tremper
7 ch
trempés

Homophone desk: tremper vs trempés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: tremper and trempés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tʁɑ̃.pe\. 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 56634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tremper is recorded at frequency rank #20,876, classified as averb, pronounced \tʁɑ̃.pe\. trempés is at rank #35,758, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tʁɑ̃.pe\.

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 56634, this pair ranks #119,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tremper vs trempés

Shared letters: emprt. Private to "tremper": -. Private to "trempés": sé.

"tremper" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "trempés" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tremper ← rtemper · termper · tremepr · tremmper · tremperr · trempper · trempre · trepmer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tremper" for "trempés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tremper" is a verb and "trempés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "tremper" or "trempés" show up more?
"tremper" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,876 in our French list, against #35,758 for "trempés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tremper" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "trempés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #119,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tremper" and "trempés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "trempés vs trépas". 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 #119,882 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