retardéevsretardésConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#25,112
“retardée” frequency rank
#39,506
“retardés” frequency rank
64618
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retardée retardés
Definition Femme qui a été retardée. Masculin pluriel de retardé.

Same sound, different letters: retardée vs retardés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. retardée (CVCVCCVV) and retardés (CVCVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
retardée
8 ch
retardés

Same sound, different spelling - retardée / retardés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: retardée and retardés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.taʁ.de\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “retardée” becomes s in “retardés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64618, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

retardée is recorded at frequency rank #25,112, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.taʁ.de\. retardés is at rank #39,506, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.taʁ.de\.

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 64618, this pair ranks #76,180 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of retardée vs retardés

Shared letters: aderté. Private to "retardée": -. Private to "retardés": s.

"retardée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV  ·  "retardés" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "retardée" and "retardés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "retardée" is a noun and "retardés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "retardée" vs "retardés" - which ranks higher?
"retardée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,112 in our French list, against #39,506 for "retardés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "retardée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retardés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #76,180 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retardée" and "retardés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "regardées vs retardés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #76,180 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