repetitionvsrepositionTell them apart

Quick tell: repetition is a noun, reposition is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“repetition” is a noun and “reposition” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,489
“repetition” frequency rank
#41,348
“reposition” frequency rank
56837
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature repetition reposition
Definition The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated. To put into a new position

Letter map: repetition vs reposition

Shared letters muted; letters that set repetition and reposition apart highlighted. Shared run: 8.

10 ch
repetition
10 ch
reposition

Part-of-speech tell for repetition / reposition

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: repetition is anoun and repositionaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56837, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

repetition is recorded at frequency rank #15,489, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/. reposition is at rank #41,348, tagged as averb.

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 56837, this pair ranks #123,390 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of repetition vs reposition

Shared letters: einoprt. Private to "repetition": -. Private to "reposition": s.

"repetition" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVCVVC  ·  "reposition" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • repetitionerpetition · reeptition · repeittion · repetiiton · repetision · repetitino · repetitionn · repetitoin
  • repositionerposition · reopsition · repoistion · reposiiton · reposision · repositino · repositionn · repositoin

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "repetition" and "reposition" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "repetition" is a noun and "reposition" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "repetition" or "reposition" show up more?
"repetition" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,489 in our English list, against #41,348 for "reposition". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "repetition" and "reposition". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "repetition" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reposition" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #123,390 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "repetition" and "reposition" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "repetition vs repetitive". 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 #123,390 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list