respectervsrespectésConfusable pair

Quick tell: respecter is a verb, respectés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#2,246
“respecter” frequency rank
#15,995
“respectés” frequency rank
18241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature respecter respectés
Definition Honorer ; révérer ; porter respect (à). Masculin pluriel de respecté.

Same sound, different letters: respecter vs respectés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. respecter and respectés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
respecter
9 ch
respectés

Same sound, different spelling - respecter / respectés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: respecter and respectés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁɛs.pɛk.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

respecter is recorded at frequency rank #2,246, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁɛs.pɛk.te\. respectés is at rank #15,995, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁɛs.pɛk.te\.

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 18241, this pair ranks #379,321 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of respecter vs respectés

Shared letters: ceprst. Private to "respecter": -. Private to "respectés": é.

"respecter" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC  ·  "respectés" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • respectererspecter · repsecter · resepcter · respceter · respeccter · respecetr · respecterr · respectre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "respecter" and "respectés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "respecter" is a verb and "respectés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "respecter" or "respectés" show up more?
"respecter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,246 in our French list, against #15,995 for "respectés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"respecter" and "respectés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "respecter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "respectés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #379,321 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "respecter" and "respectés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "respectera vs respectés". 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 #379,321 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