refuséevsréguléeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#13,896
“refusée” frequency rank
#44,162
“régulée” frequency rank
58058
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refusée régulée
Definition Féminin singulier de refusé. Participe passé féminin singulier de réguler.

Where the eye mixes refusée and régulée

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

7 ch
refusée
7 ch
régulée

Why the eye confuses refusée with régulée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: refusée is \ʁə.fy.ze\ while régulée is \ʁe.ɡy.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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58058, 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\. régulée is at rank #44,162, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.ɡy.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 58058, this pair ranks #111,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of refusée vs régulée

Shared letters: erué. Private to "refusée": fs. Private to "régulée": gl.

"refusée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "régulée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "refusée" and "régulée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "refusée" is an adjective and "régulée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "refusée" or "régulée" show up more?
"refusée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,896 in our French list, against #44,162 for "régulée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "refusée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "régulée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #111,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refusée" and "régulée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "refoulée vs régulée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #111,306 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