reculéevsreculésWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#39,008
“reculée” frequency rank
#33,432
“reculés” frequency rank
72440
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reculée reculés
Definition Espace qui permet de se reculer. Masculin pluriel de reculé.

Same sound, different letters: reculée vs reculés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. reculée (CVCVCVV) and reculés (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
reculée
7 ch
reculés

Ear matches; page differs - reculée and reculés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: reculée and reculés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.ky.le\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “reculée” becomes s in “reculés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72440, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reculée is recorded at frequency rank #39,008, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.ky.le\. 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 72440, this pair ranks #43,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of reculée vs reculés

Shared letters: celrué. Private to "reculée": -. Private to "reculés": s.

"reculée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "reculés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "reculée" for "reculés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reculée" is a noun and "reculés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "reculée" or "reculés"?
"reculés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,432 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

You've separated the homophone pair "reculée" / "reculés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "reculée" 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 #43,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reculée" and "reculés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculée vs refoulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #43,990 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