secouévssecouéeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#18,063
“secoué” frequency rank
#32,593
“secouée” frequency rank
50656
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature secoué secouée
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de secouer. Participe passé féminin singulier de secouer.

Same sound, different letters: secoué vs secouée

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

6 ch
secoué
7 ch
secouée

Ear matches; page differs - secoué and secouée

This is the hard kind. secoué and secouée are pronounced identically (\sə.kwe\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “secoué” sits inside “secouée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50656, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

secoué is recorded at frequency rank #18,063, classified as averb, pronounced \sə.kwe\. secouée is at rank #32,593, tagged as averb, pronounced \sə.kwe\.

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 50656, this pair ranks #160,957 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of secoué vs secouée

Shared letters: ceosué. Private to "secoué": -. Private to "secouée": -.

"secoué" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV  ·  "secouée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "secoué" for "secouée" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\sə.kwe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "secoué" vs "secouée" - which ranks higher?
"secoué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,063 in our French list, against #32,593 for "secouée". 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 "secoué" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "secouée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #160,957 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "secoué" and "secouée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "secouée vs secouent". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #160,957 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