dérouléevsdésoléeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: déroulée is a noun, désolée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,862
“déroulée” frequency rank
#5,338
“désolée” frequency rank
16200
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature déroulée désolée
Definition Groupe de personnes se déplaçant ensemble. Féminin singulier de désolé.

Where the eye mixes déroulée and désolée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. déroulée runs 8 letters (CVCVVCVV) against désolée's 7 (CVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
déroulée
7 ch
désolée

Visual trap between déroulée and désolée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: déroulée is \de.ʁu.le\ while désolée is \de.zɔ.le\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16200, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

déroulée is recorded at frequency rank #10,862, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.ʁu.le\. désolée is at rank #5,338, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.zɔ.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 16200, this pair ranks #388,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of déroulée vs désolée

Shared letters: deloé. Private to "déroulée": ru. Private to "désolée": s.

"déroulée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVV  ·  "désolée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "déroulée" and "désolée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "déroulée" is a noun and "désolée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "déroulée" or "désolée" show up more?
"désolée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,338 in our French list, against #10,862 for "déroulée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "déroulée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "désolée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "déroulée" and "désolée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déroula vs déroulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #388,918 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