refuséevsrefusésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“refusée” and “refusés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#13,896
“refusée” frequency rank
#27,595
“refusés” frequency rank
41491
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refusée refusés
Definition Féminin singulier de refusé. Masculin pluriel de refusé.

Same sound, different letters: refusée vs refusés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. refusée (CVCVCVV) and refusés (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
refusée
7 ch
refusés

Ear matches; page differs - refusée and refusés

This is the hard kind. refusée and refusés are pronounced identically (\ʁə.fy.ze\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “refusée” becomes s in “refusés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41491, 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\. refusés is at rank #27,595, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.fy.ze\.

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 41491, this pair ranks #232,698 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of refusée vs refusés

Shared letters: efrsué. Private to "refusée": -. Private to "refusés": -.

"refusée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "refusés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "refusée" for "refusés" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʁə.fy.ze\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "refusée" vs "refusés" - which ranks higher?
"refusée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,896 in our French list, against #27,595 for "refusés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "refusée" / "refusés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "refusée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "refusés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #232,698 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refusée" and "refusés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "refusés vs révisés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #232,698 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