Which to use
“secoué” and “secouer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,063
- “secoué” frequency rank
- #14,361
- “secouer” frequency rank
- 32424
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | secoué | secouer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé masculin singulier de secouer. | Remuer quelque chose fortement et à plusieurs reprises. |
Same sound, different letters: secoué vs secouer
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Homophone desk: secoué vs secouer
This is the hard kind. secoué and secouer 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32424, 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\. secouer is at rank #14,361, 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 32424, this pair ranks #297,384 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of secoué vs secouer
Shared letters: ceosu. Private to "secoué": é. Private to "secouer": r.
"secoué" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV · "secouer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- secouer ← escouer · sceouer · seccouer · secoeur · secouerr · secoure · secuoer · seocuer
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "secoué" for "secouer" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "secoué" or "secouer" show up more?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "secoué" / "secouer". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "secoué" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "secouer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #297,384 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "secoué" and "secouer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "secoué vs secouent". 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 #297,384 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.