cumuléevscumulerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#35,454
“cumulée” frequency rank
#22,826
“cumuler” frequency rank
58280
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cumulée cumuler
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe cumuler. Réunir en sa personne plusieurs choses différentes.

Same sound, different letters: cumulée vs cumuler

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. cumulée (CVCVCVV) and cumuler (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
cumulée
7 ch
cumuler

Ear matches; page differs - cumulée and cumuler

This is the hard kind. cumulée and cumuler are pronounced identically (\ky.my.le\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58280, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cumulée is recorded at frequency rank #35,454, classified as averb, pronounced \ky.my.le\. cumuler is at rank #22,826, tagged as averb, pronounced \ky.my.le\.

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 58280, this pair ranks #109,972 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cumulée vs cumuler

Shared letters: celmu. Private to "cumulée": é. Private to "cumuler": r.

"cumulée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "cumuler" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cumuler ← ccumuler · cmuuler · cumluer · cummuler · cumuelr · cumulerr · cumuller · cumulre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cumulée" and "cumuler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ky.my.le\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "cumulée" vs "cumuler" - which ranks higher?
"cumuler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,826 in our French list, against #35,454 for "cumulée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "cumulée" / "cumuler". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cumulée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cumuler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #109,972 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cumulée" and "cumuler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cumulée vs cumulées". 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 #109,972 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