secouéevssecouerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,593
“secouée” frequency rank
#14,361
“secouer” frequency rank
46954
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature secouée secouer
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de secouer. Remuer quelque chose fortement et à plusieurs reprises.

Same sound, different letters: secouée vs secouer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. secouée (CVCVVVV) and secouer (CVCVVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
secouée
7 ch
secouer

Same sound, different spelling - secouée / secouer

This is the hard kind. secouée 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46954, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

secouée is recorded at frequency rank #32,593, 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 46954, this pair ranks #190,740 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of secouée vs secouer

Shared letters: ceosu. Private to "secouée": é. Private to "secouer": r.

"secouée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVV  ·  "secouer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • secouer ← escouer · sceouer · seccouer · secoeur · secouerr · secoure · secuoer · seocuer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "secouée" and "secouer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
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: "secouée" vs "secouer" - which ranks higher?
"secouer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,361 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.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "secouée" / "secouer". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "secouée" 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 #190,740 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "secouée" and "secouer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "secouée 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 #190,740 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