retournéevsretournezWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#15,744
“retournée” frequency rank
#21,755
“retournez” frequency rank
37499
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retournée retournez
Definition Féminin singulier de retourné. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de retourner.

Same sound, different letters: retournée vs retournez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. retournée (CVCVVCCVV) and retournez (CVCVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
retournée
9 ch
retournez

Homophone desk: retournée vs retournez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: retournée and retournez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.tuʁ.ne\. 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 37499, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

retournée is recorded at frequency rank #15,744, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.tuʁ.ne\. retournez is at rank #21,755, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.tuʁ.ne\.

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 37499, this pair ranks #262,091 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of retournée vs retournez

Shared letters: enortu. Private to "retournée": é. Private to "retournez": z.

"retournée" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVV  ·  "retournez" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • retournez ← ertournez · reoturnez · retorunez · retounrez · retourenz · retournezz · retournnez · retournze

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "retournée" and "retournez" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "retournée" is an adjective and "retournez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "retournée" or "retournez" show up more?
"retournée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,744 in our French list, against #21,755 for "retournez". 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 "retournée" / "retournez". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "retournée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retournez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #262,091 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retournée" and "retournez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "retournées vs retournez". 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 #262,091 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