Which to use
“recul” and “reculée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,368
- “recul” frequency rank
- #39,008
- “reculée” frequency rank
- 43376
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | recul | reculée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de reculer. | Espace qui permet de se reculer. |
Where the eye mixes recul and reculée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. recul runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against reculée's 7 (CVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses recul with reculée
A purely visual mix-up. recul (\ʁə.kyl\) and reculée (\ʁə.ky.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “recul” sits inside “reculée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43376, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
recul is recorded at frequency rank #4,368, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.kyl\. reculée is at rank #39,008, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.ky.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 43376, this pair ranks #218,514 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of recul vs reculée
Shared letters: celru. Private to "recul": -. Private to "reculée": é.
"recul" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "reculée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- recul ← ercul · rceul · reccul · reclu · recull · reucl · rrecul
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "recul" and "reculée" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "recul" or "reculée" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "recul" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "reculée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #218,514 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "recul" and "reculée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculée vs refoulée". 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 #218,514 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.