relais

/\ʁə.lɛ\/ noun

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#4,094

in French word usage

Misspellings

8

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

relais is aFrenchnoun. It means: Un ou plusieurs chevaux frais, soit de selle, soit d’attelage, que l’on poste en quelque endroit pour remplacer ou renforcer ceux qui ont servi jusque-là. Pronounced \ʁə.lɛ\. It ranks #4,094 in French word frequency. Often confused with repas and remis.

Key facts for relais
PropertyValue
Headwordrelais
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʁə.lɛ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#4,094
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of relais in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for relais is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʁə.lɛ\. Corpus data places it at rank #4,094 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for relais, with forms such as "erlais", "realis", and "relaiss". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "repas", "remis", "relié", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is relais, spelled R-E-L-A-I-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Un ou plusieurs chevaux frais, soit de selle, soit d’attelage, que l’on poste en quelque endroit pour remplacer ou renforcer ceux qui ont servi jusque-là.
  2. 2
    Se dit aussi en parlant des chiens qu’on poste, soit à la chasse du cerf, soit à celle du sanglier,.
  3. 3
    Lieu où l’on met les chevaux frais, soit pour les voyages soit pour la chasse, où on changeait et entretenait sa monture.
  4. 4
    Lieu d’étape.
  5. 5
    Lieu d’étape.
  6. 6
    Émetteur intermédiaire.
  7. 7
    Émetteur intermédiaire.
  8. 8
    Émetteur intermédiaire.
  9. 9
    Course de relais.
  10. 10
    Changement de cheval en tête d'une course hippique.
  11. 11
    Commutateur ou interrupteur actionné par un électroaimant.
  12. 12
    Dispositif sans pièce mobile assurant la même fonction.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: erlais,realis,relaiss,relasi,relias,rellais,rleais,rrelais

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for relais

Misspelling Variants of "relais"

erlais6realis6relaiss7relasi6relias6rellais7rleais6rrelais7
Misspelling Variants of "relais"

Frequency rank: #4,094 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "relais"?
"relais" is spelled R-E-L-A-I-S. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁə.lɛ\.
What does "relais" mean?
As a noun, "relais" means: Un ou plusieurs chevaux frais, soit de selle, soit d’attelage, que l’on poste en quelque endroit pour remplacer ou renforcer ceux qui ont servi jusque-là.
What words are commonly confused with "relais"?
"relais" is commonly confused with "repas", "remis", "relié". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "relais"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "relais" is \ʁə.lɛ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "relais" come from?
"relais" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter R in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.