retentir

\ʁə.tɑ̃.tiʁ\

/\ʁə.tɑ̃.tiʁ\/ verb

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“retentir” is uncommon French (frequency #51,706 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#51,706
frequency rank, French
5,742
“R” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Rendre ou renvoyer un son éclatant.

Corpus desk

Index FR-retentir · retentir · French

retentir · rank #51,706 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #51,706
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,742
  • PHOTO-FINISH resservir

Nearest frequency peer: resservir (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « retentir »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « retentir » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for retentir
PropertyValue
Headwordretentir
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\ʁə.tɑ̃.tiʁ\
Letters8
Frequency rank#51,706
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « retentir » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.retentirtombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « resservir » (#51,705), « ribot » (#51,707), « reptilien » (#51,704). Parmi 5,742 lemmes en « R », « retentir » est au #51,706. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

retentir is uncommon French at frequency #51,706 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ʁə.tɑ̃.tiʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

retentir doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is retentir, spelled R-E-T-E-N-T-I-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Rendre ou renvoyer un son éclatant.
  2. 2
    Faire ou produire un bruit éclatant.
  3. 3
    Produire dans l’âme une forte impression.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how retentir appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Cette voûte retentit du bruit des trompettes.
  2. Vers le soir, le téléphone retentit.

Synonyms

résonner

This word in other languages

ring out(English)erschallen(Deutsch)ressoar(Português)

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "retentir"?
"retentir" is spelled R-E-T-E-N-T-I-R. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁə.tɑ̃.tiʁ\.
What does "retentir" mean?
As a verb, "retentir" means: Rendre ou renvoyer un son éclatant.
How do you pronounce "retentir"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "retentir" is \ʁə.tɑ̃.tiʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "retentir" come from?
"retentir" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "retentir", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

relayant#51,701Romandie#51,714répétera#51,725quatuors#51,686

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list