repose
/ɹɪˈpəʊz/
"repose" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“repose” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #39,529 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #39,529
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 17
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To lay (someone, or part of their body) down to rest.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | repose |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɹɪˈpəʊz/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #39,529 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 17 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “repose” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for repose is 6 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹɪˈpəʊz/. Corpus data places it at rank #39,529 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for repose, with forms such as "erpose", "reopse", and "repoes". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 17 confusable-pair relationships, "rose", "reps", "reuse", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is derived from Middle English reposen (“to rest”), from Anglo-Norman reposer, reposir, and Middle French reposer, from Old French reposer, repauser (“to become calm; to be peaceful; to rest; to be immobile; to lie or be placed; to cease, stop; to … The correct English form is repose, spelled R-E-P-O-S-E.
Definition
- 1To lay (someone, or part of their body) down to rest.
- 2To rest (oneself), especially by going to sleep.
- 3Followed by from or (obsolete) of: to cause (oneself) to take a rest from some activity; also, to allow (oneself) to recover from some activity.
- 4To give (someone) rest; to refresh (someone) by giving rest.
- 5To cause (oneself) to have faith in or rely on someone or something.
- 6To give (someone) accommodation for the night.
- 7To lean or recline, sit down, or lie down to rest; to rest.
- 8To lean or recline, sit down, or lie down to rest; to rest.
- 9Followed by on or upon: of a thing: to lie or be physically positioned on something, especially horizontally; to rest on or be supported by something.
- 10Followed by on or upon: of light, a look, etc.: to fall or rest (and often remain for a while) on something; to alight, to dwell.
- 11Followed by on or upon: to be based on; to depend or rely on.
- 12To cease activity to rest or recover; also, to have a period free from activity or disturbance.
- 13To have faith in; to confide, to trust.
- 14To lie still and unmoving.
Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English reposen (“to rest”), from Anglo-Norman reposer, reposir, and Middle French reposer, from Old French reposer, repauser (“to become calm; to be peaceful; to rest; to be immobile; to lie or be placed; to cease, stop; to neglect”) (modern French reposer), from Latin repausāre, the present active infinitive of repausō (“(Late Latin) to be at rest; to lie down, rest; to sleep; to calm, pacify; (Latin) to halt temporarily, pause”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again; back, backwards’) + pausō (“to cease, halt; to pause”) (from pausa (“a halt, stop; a pause; an end”), from Ancient Greek παῦσῐς (paûsĭs, “ceasing, stopping”), from παύω (paúō, “to cease; to make to cease, stop; to bring to an end; to hinder”) (further etymology uncertain; possibly from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, little; smallness”)) + -σῐς (-sĭs, suffix forming abstract nouns or nouns of action, process, or result)). The noun is derived from Late Middle English repose, from Anglo-Norman repous, repos, and Middle French repos, repose, from Old French repos (“calm; rest; period or state of sleep; state of immobility; state of inaction”) (modern French repos), from reposer, repauser (verb) (see above). Noun etymology 1 sense 12.3 (“technique of including in a painting an area or areas which are dark, indistinct, or soft in tone”) is borrowed from French repos. Cognates Catalan reposar (verb), repòs (noun) Italian riposare (verb), riposo (noun) Old Occitan repausar, repauzar (verb), repaus (noun) Portuguese repousar (verb), repouso (noun) Spanish reposar (verb), reposo (noun)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: erpose,reopse,repoes,reposse,reppose,repsoe,rpeose,rrepose
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of repose - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "repose"?
What does "repose" mean?
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Using “repose”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-E-P-O-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɹɪˈpəʊz/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “rose” - see the side-by-side comparison. repose vs rose
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.