retenu

\ʁət.ny\

/\ʁət.ny\/ adj

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

The verdict

“retenu” has 8 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #4,613. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#4,613
frequency rank, French
5,742
“R” headwords
8
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est circonspect, sage, modéré, réservé.

Corpus desk

Index FR-retenu · retenu · French

retenu · rank #4,613 · 8 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,613
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 8 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,742
  • PHOTO-FINISH Raymond

Nearest frequency peer: Raymond (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « retenu »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « retenu » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

retenu vs revenu
83% similar
retenu vs rêvent
50% similar
retenu vs revêtu
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for retenu
PropertyValue
Headwordretenu
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\ʁət.ny\
Letters6
Frequency rank#4,613
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « retenu »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).retenuse place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « Raymond » (#4,612), « raciste » (#4,611), « robot » (#4,615). Parmi 5,742 lemmes en « R », « retenu » est au #4,613. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 8 spelling variants around retenu (IPA \ʁət.ny\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #4,613 among 5,742 “R” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Qui est circonspect, sage, modéré, réservé.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for retenu, with forms such as "ertenu", "reetnu", and "retennu". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "revenu", "rêvent", "revêtu", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is retenu, spelled R-E-T-E-N-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui est circonspect, sage, modéré, réservé.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Il est fort sage et fort retenu.
  2. C’est un homme fort retenu dans ses discours.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ertenu
  • reetnu
  • retennu
  • reteun
  • retneu
  • rettenu
  • rretenu
  • rteenu

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of retenu - 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.

ertenu2reetnu2retennu1reteun2retneu2rettenu1rretenu1rteenu2
Edit distance from "retenu"

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 "retenu"?
"retenu" is spelled R-E-T-E-N-U. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁət.ny\.
What does "retenu" mean?
As an adjective, "retenu" means: Qui est circonspect, sage, modéré, réservé.
What words are commonly confused with "retenu"?
"retenu" is commonly confused with "revenu", "rêvent", "revêtu". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "retenu"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "retenu" is \ʁət.ny\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "retenu" come from?
"retenu" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "retenu", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

romans#4,616pommes#4,599tirage#4,627voyait#4,634

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).

rôles8 variantspourrez8 variantsponts8 variantsXavier8 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list