retiréevsretirésTell them apart

Which to use

“retirée” and “retirés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,475
“retirée” frequency rank
#13,248
“retirés” frequency rank
24723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retirée retirés
Definition Féminin singulier de retiré. Masculin pluriel de l’adjectif retiré.

Same sound, different letters: retirée vs retirés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. retirée (CVCVCVV) and retirés (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
retirée
7 ch
retirés

Homophone desk: retirée vs retirés

This is the hard kind. retirée and retirés are pronounced identically (\ʁə.ti.ʁe\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “retirée” becomes s in “retirés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

retirée is recorded at frequency rank #11,475, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.ti.ʁe\. retirés is at rank #13,248, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.ti.ʁe\.

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 24723, this pair ranks #344,983 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of retirée vs retirés

Shared letters: eirté. Private to "retirée": -. Private to "retirés": s.

"retirée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "retirés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "retirée" and "retirés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʁə.ti.ʁe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "retirée" or "retirés"?
"retirée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,475 in our French list, against #13,248 for "retirés". 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 "retirée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retirés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #344,983 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retirée" and "retirés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "retirés vs révisés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #344,983 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