Which to use
“recul” is a noun and “reculés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,368
- “recul” frequency rank
- #33,432
- “reculés” frequency rank
- 37800
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | recul | reculés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de reculer. | Masculin pluriel de reculé. |
Where the eye mixes recul and reculés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between recul and reculés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: recul is \ʁə.kyl\ while reculés is \ʁə.ky.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “recul” sits inside “reculés”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37800, 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\. reculés is at rank #33,432, tagged as anadj, 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 37800, this pair ranks #259,849 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of recul vs reculés
Shared letters: celru. Private to "recul": -. Private to "reculés": sé.
"recul" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "reculés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- recul ← ercul · rceul · reccul · reclu · recull · reucl · rrecul
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "recul" for "reculés" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "recul" or "reculés" show up more?
What to do next
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 "reculés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #259,849 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "recul" and "reculés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculés vs rénales". 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 #259,849 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.