retiréesvsretirerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#23,350
“retirées” frequency rank
#2,448
“retirer” frequency rank
25798
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retirées retirer
Definition Féminin pluriel de retiré. Tirer à nouveau.

Same sound, different letters: retirées vs retirer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. retirées runs 8 letters (CVCVCVVC) against retirer's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
retirées
7 ch
retirer

Homophone desk: retirées vs retirer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: retirées and retirer 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25798, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

retirées is recorded at frequency rank #23,350, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.ti.ʁe\. retirer is at rank #2,448, 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 25798, this pair ranks #338,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of retirées vs retirer

Shared letters: eirt. Private to "retirées": sé. Private to "retirer": -.

"retirées" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "retirer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • retirer ← ertirer · reitrer · retierr · retirerr · retirre · retirrer · retrier · rettirer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "retirées" and "retirer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "retirées" is an adjective and "retirer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "retirées" vs "retirer" - which ranks higher?
"retirer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,448 in our French list, against #23,350 for "retirées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "retirées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retirer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #338,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retirées" and "retirer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "repérées vs retirées". 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 #338,789 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