rentrévsrentréeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: rentré is a adjective, rentrée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rentré” is an adjective and “rentrée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,017
“rentré” frequency rank
#2,643
“rentrée” frequency rank
6660
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rentré rentrée
Definition Définition manquante ou à compléter. (Ajouter) Action de rentrer.

Same sound, different letters: rentré vs rentrée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
rentré
7 ch
rentrée

Ear matches; page differs - rentré and rentrée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: rentré and rentrée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁɑ̃.tʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “rentré” sits inside “rentrée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6660, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rentré is recorded at frequency rank #4,017, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁɑ̃.tʁe\. rentrée is at rank #2,643, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɑ̃.tʁe\.

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 6660, this pair ranks #425,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of rentré vs rentrée

Shared letters: enrté. Private to "rentré": -. Private to "rentrée": -.

"rentré" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "rentrée" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "rentré" and "rentrée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rentré" is an adjective and "rentrée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "rentré" or "rentrée" show up more?
"rentrée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,643 in our French list, against #4,017 for "rentré". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rentré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rentrée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #425,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rentré" and "rentrée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rentré vs rustre". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #425,605 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