retournéesvsretourneraConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#45,283
“retournées” frequency rank
#24,013
“retournera” frequency rank
69296
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature retournées retournera
Definition Féminin pluriel de retourné. Troisième personne du singulier du futur de retourner.

Where the eye mixes retournées and retournera

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. retournées (CVCVVCCVVC) and retournera (CVCVVCCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

10 ch
retournées
10 ch
retournera

Why the eye confuses retournées with retournera

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: retournées is \ʁə.tuʁ.ne\ while retournera is \ʁə.tuʁ.nə.ʁa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69296, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

retournées is recorded at frequency rank #45,283, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.tuʁ.ne\. retournera is at rank #24,013, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.tuʁ.nə.ʁa\.

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 69296, this pair ranks #55,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of retournées vs retournera

Shared letters: enortu. Private to "retournées": sé. Private to "retournera": a.

"retournées" · 10 letters · shape CVCVVCCVVC  ·  "retournera" · 10 letters · shape CVCVVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • retournera ← ertournera · reoturnera · retorunera · retounrera · retourenra · retournear · retournerra · retournnera

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "retournées" and "retournera" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "retournées" is an adjective and "retournera" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "retournées" or "retournera" show up more?
"retournera" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,013 in our French list, against #45,283 for "retournées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "retournées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retournera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "retournées" and "retournera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "retournées vs retournons". 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 #55,685 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