relatévsrelayéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,559
“relaté” frequency rank
#21,141
“relayé” frequency rank
53700
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature relaté relayé
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de relater. Participe passé masculin singulier de relayer.

Where the eye mixes relaté and relayé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. relaté (CVCVCV) and relayé (CVCVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
relaté
6 ch
relayé

Look-alike desk: relaté vs relayé

A purely visual mix-up. relaté (\ʁə.la.te\) and relayé (\ʁə.lɛ.je\) 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 a single letter - t in “relaté” becomes y in “relayé”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53700, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

relaté is recorded at frequency rank #32,559, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.la.te\. relayé is at rank #21,141, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.lɛ.je\.

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 53700, this pair ranks #138,985 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of relaté vs relayé

Shared letters: aelré. Private to "relaté": t. Private to "relayé": y.

"relaté" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "relayé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "relaté" for "relayé" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.la.te\ versus \ʁə.lɛ.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "relaté" or "relayé"?
"relayé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,141 in our French list, against #32,559 for "relaté". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "relaté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "relayé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #138,985 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "relaté" and "relayé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "relaté vs relit". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #138,985 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