Which to use
“refoulée” is an adjective and “refouler” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,899
- “refoulée” frequency rank
- #32,152
- “refouler” frequency rank
- 82051
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | refoulée | refouler |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de refoulé. | Fouler (presser) de nouveau. |
Same sound, different letters: refoulée vs refouler
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. refoulée (CVCVVCVV) and refouler (CVCVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Homophone desk: refoulée vs refouler
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: refoulée and refouler carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.fu.le\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82051, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
refoulée is recorded at frequency rank #49,899, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.fu.le\. refouler is at rank #32,152, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fu.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 82051, this pair ranks #17,532 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of refoulée vs refouler
Shared letters: efloru. Private to "refoulée": é. Private to "refouler": -.
"refoulée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVV · "refouler" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- refouler ← erfouler · reffouler · refoluer · refouelr · refoulerr · refouller · refoulre · refuoler
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "refoulée" and "refouler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "refoulée" or "refouler" show up more?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "refoulée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "refouler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #17,532 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "refoulée" and "refouler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "refoulée vs régulée". 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 #17,532 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.