restevsrestéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: reste is a noun, restée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#205
“reste” frequency rank
#5,073
“restée” frequency rank
5278
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reste restée
Definition Ce qui demeure d’un tout, d’une plus grande quantité ; ce qui subsiste d’une chose passée, tant au sens physique qu’au sens moral. Féminin singulier de resté.

Where the eye mixes reste and restée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
reste
6 ch
restée

Visual trap between reste and restée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reste is \ʁɛst\ while restée is \ʁɛs.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5278, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reste is recorded at frequency rank #205, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛst\. restée is at rank #5,073, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁɛs.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 5278, this pair ranks #429,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of reste vs restée

Shared letters: erst. Private to "reste": -. Private to "restée": é.

"reste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "restée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • resteerste · resste · restte · retse · rreste · rsete

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "reste" and "restée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reste" is a noun and "restée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "reste" vs "restée" - which ranks higher?
"reste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #205 in our French list, against #5,073 for "restée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "reste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "restée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #429,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reste" and "restée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "restée vs rustre". 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 #429,453 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