reculéesvsrécupérésTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#37,515
“reculées” frequency rank
#21,458
“récupérés” frequency rank
58973
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reculées récupérés
Definition Pluriel de reculée. Participe passé masculin pluriel de récupérer.

Where the eye mixes reculées and récupérés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. reculées runs 8 letters (CVCVCVVC) against récupérés's 9 (CVCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
reculées
9 ch
récupérés

Visual trap between reculées and récupérés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reculées is \ʁə.ky.le\ while récupérés is \ʁe.ky.pe.ʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58973, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reculées is recorded at frequency rank #37,515, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.ky.le\. récupérés is at rank #21,458, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.ky.pe.ʁe\.

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 58973, this pair ranks #105,828 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of reculées vs récupérés

Shared letters: crsué. Private to "reculées": el. Private to "récupérés": p.

"reculées" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "récupérés" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "reculées" and "récupérés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reculées" is a noun and "récupérés" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "reculées" or "récupérés" show up more?
"récupérés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,458 in our French list, against #37,515 for "reculées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "reculées" and "récupérés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "reculées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "récupérés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,828 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reculées" and "récupérés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reculées vs régulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #105,828 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