restéevsrestezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: restée is a adjective, restez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#5,073
“restée” frequency rank
#6,747
“restez” frequency rank
11820
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature restée restez
Definition Féminin singulier de resté. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de rester.

Same sound, different letters: restée vs restez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
restée
6 ch
restez

Homophone desk: restée vs restez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: restée and restez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁɛs.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, 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 11820, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

restée is recorded at frequency rank #5,073, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁɛs.te\. restez is at rank #6,747, tagged as averb, 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 11820, this pair ranks #407,672 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of restée vs restez

Shared letters: erst. Private to "restée": é. Private to "restez": z.

"restée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "restez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • restezerstez · resetz · resstez · restezz · resttez · restze · retsez · rrestez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "restée" and "restez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "restée" is an adjective and "restez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "restée" or "restez" show up more?
"restée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,073 in our French list, against #6,747 for "restez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "restée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "restez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #407,672 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "restée" and "restez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "resterez vs restez". 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 #407,672 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