reculéevsrésuméeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,008
“reculée” frequency rank
#28,340
“résumée” frequency rank
67348
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reculée résumée
Definition Espace qui permet de se reculer. Participe passé féminin singulier de résumer.

Where the eye mixes reculée and résumée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. reculée and résumée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
reculée
7 ch
résumée

Why the eye confuses reculée with résumée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reculée is \ʁə.ky.le\ while résumée is \ʁe.zy.me\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67348, 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\. résumée is at rank #28,340, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.zy.me\.

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 67348, this pair ranks #63,816 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of reculée vs résumée

Shared letters: erué. Private to "reculée": cl. Private to "résumée": ms.

"reculée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "résumée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "reculée" and "résumée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reculée" is a noun and "résumée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "reculée" or "résumée" show up more?
"résumée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,340 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

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "reculée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "résumée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,816 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reculée" and "résumée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculée vs refoulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #63,816 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