reculévsrotuleTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#16,720
“reculé” frequency rank
#39,517
“rotule” frequency rank
56237
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reculé rotule
Definition Qui est éloigné, lointain. Petit os plat, triangulaire, à angles arrondis, placé en avant du genou, à l’endroit où le fémur s’articule avec le tibia.

Letter map: reculé vs rotule

Shared letters muted; letters that set reculé and rotule apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. reculé and rotule follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
reculé
6 ch
rotule

Role in the sentence - reculé and rotule

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: reculé is anadjective and rotuleanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56237, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reculé is recorded at frequency rank #16,720, classified as anadj. rotule is at rank #39,517, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɔ.tyl\.

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 56237, this pair ranks #122,356 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reculé vs rotule

Shared letters: elru. Private to "reculé": cé. Private to "rotule": ot.

"reculé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "rotule" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rotule ← ortule · rotlue · rottule · rotuel · rotulle · routle · rrotule · rtoule

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "reculé" for "rotule" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reculé" is an adjective and "rotule" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "reculé" vs "rotule" - which ranks higher?
"reculé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,720 in our French list, against #39,517 for "rotule". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "reculé" and "rotule".

  • Full dictionary entry for "reculé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rotule" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #122,356 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reculé" and "rotule" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rotule vs rouble". 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 #122,356 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