retiréevsretirezWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#11,475
“retirée” frequency rank
#21,446
“retirez” frequency rank
32921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retirée retirez
Definition Féminin singulier de retiré. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de retirer.

Same sound, different letters: retirée vs retirez

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

7 ch
retirée
7 ch
retirez

Ear matches; page differs - retirée and retirez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: retirée and retirez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.ti.ʁe\. 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 32921, 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\. retirez is at rank #21,446, tagged as averb, 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 32921, this pair ranks #294,082 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of retirée vs retirez

Shared letters: eirt. Private to "retirée": é. Private to "retirez": z.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • retirez ← ertirez · reitrez · retierz · retirezz · retirrez · retirze · retriez · rettirez

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "retirée" and "retirez" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "retirée" is an adjective and "retirez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "retirée" vs "retirez" - which ranks higher?
"retirée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,475 in our French list, against #21,446 for "retirez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "retirée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retirez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #294,082 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retirée" and "retirez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "resterez vs retirez". 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 #294,082 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