refuséevsrefusentWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: refusée is a adjective, refusent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“refusée” is an adjective and “refusent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,896
“refusée” frequency rank
#5,915
“refusent” frequency rank
19811
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refusée refusent
Definition Féminin singulier de refusé. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de refuser.

Where the eye mixes refusée and refusent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
refusée
8 ch
refusent

Why the eye confuses refusée with refusent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: refusée is \ʁə.fy.ze\ while refusent is \ʁə.fyz\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19811, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

refusée is recorded at frequency rank #13,896, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.fy.ze\. refusent is at rank #5,915, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fyz\.

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 19811, this pair ranks #371,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of refusée vs refusent

Shared letters: efrsu. Private to "refusée": é. Private to "refusent": nt.

"refusée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "refusent" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • refusenterfusent · reffusent · refsuent · refuesnt · refusennt · refusentt · refusetn · refusnet

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "refusée" and "refusent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "refusée" is an adjective and "refusent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "refusée" or "refusent" show up more?
"refusent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,915 in our French list, against #13,896 for "refusée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "refusée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "refusent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #371,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refusée" and "refusent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "refoulée vs refusée". 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 #371,427 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