regardéevsretardeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#17,246
“regardée” frequency rank
#26,160
“retarde” frequency rank
43406
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature regardée retarde
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de regarder. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de retarder.

Where the eye mixes regardée and retarde

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. regardée runs 8 letters (CVCVCCVV) against retarde's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
regardée
7 ch
retarde

Look-alike desk: regardée vs retarde

A purely visual mix-up. regardée (\ʁə.ɡaʁ.de\) and retarde (\ʁə.taʁd\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43406, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

regardée is recorded at frequency rank #17,246, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ɡaʁ.de\. retarde is at rank #26,160, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.taʁd\.

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 43406, this pair ranks #218,305 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of regardée vs retarde

Shared letters: ader. Private to "regardée": gé. Private to "retarde": t.

"regardée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV  ·  "retarde" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • retarde ← ertarde · reatrde · retadre · retardde · retared · retarrde · retrade · rettarde

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "regardée" and "retarde" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.ɡaʁ.de\ versus \ʁə.taʁd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "regardée" or "retarde"?
"regardée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,246 in our French list, against #26,160 for "retarde". 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 "regardée" and "retarde" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "regardée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retarde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #218,305 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "regardée" and "retarde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reparlé vs retarde". 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 #218,305 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