reculévsreculéeConfusable pair

Quick tell: reculé is a adjective, reculée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#16,720
“reculé” frequency rank
#39,008
“reculée” frequency rank
55728
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reculé reculée
Definition Qui est éloigné, lointain. Espace qui permet de se reculer.

Letter map: reculé vs reculée

Shared letters muted; letters that set reculé and reculée apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

6 ch
reculé
7 ch
reculée

Part-of-speech tell for reculé / reculée

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: reculé is anadjective and reculéeanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “reculé” sits inside “reculée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reculé is recorded at frequency rank #16,720, classified as anadj. 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 55728, this pair ranks #125,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reculé vs reculée

Shared letters: celrué. Private to "reculé": -. Private to "reculée": -.

"reculé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "reculée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "reculé" and "reculée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reculé" is an adjective and "reculée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "reculé" or "reculée" show up more?
"reculé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,720 in our French list, against #39,008 for "reculée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "reculé" vs "reculée" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "reculé" 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 #125,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reculé" and "reculée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculée vs refoulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #125,591 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