reculéevsrévéléeConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#39,008
“reculée” frequency rank
#12,473
“révélée” frequency rank
51481
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reculée révélée
Definition Espace qui permet de se reculer. Féminin singulier de révélé.

Where the eye mixes reculée and révélée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. reculée and révélée 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
révélée

Visual trap between reculée and révélée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reculée is \ʁə.ky.le\ while révélée is \ʁe.ve.le\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51481, 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\. révélée is at rank #12,473, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁe.ve.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 51481, this pair ranks #154,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reculée vs révélée

Shared letters: elré. Private to "reculée": cu. Private to "révélée": v.

"reculée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "révélée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "reculée" for "révélée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reculée" is a noun and "révélée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "reculée" or "révélée"?
"révélée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,473 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.

Useful next steps

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 "révélée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #154,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reculée" and "révélée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculée vs refoulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #154,676 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