Which to use
“revel” is a noun and “riven” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,187
- “revel” frequency rank
- #40,878
- “riven” frequency rank
- 66065
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | revel | riven |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An instance of merrymaking; a celebration. | past participle of rive |
Where the eye mixes revel and riven
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. revel and riven follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: revel vs riven
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: revel is /ˈɹɛv.əl/ while riven is /ˈɹɪvən/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66065, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
revel is recorded at frequency rank #25,187, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɹɛv.əl/. riven is at rank #40,878, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈɹɪvən/.
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 66065, this pair ranks #69,790 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of revel vs riven
Shared letters: erv. Private to "revel": l. Private to "riven": in.
"revel" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "riven" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "revel" and "riven" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "revel" or "riven"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "revel" and "riven" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "revel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "riven" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #69,790 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "revel" and "riven" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ripen vs riven". 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 #69,790 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.