retenue

/\ʁə.tə.ny\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#5,496

in French word usage

Misspellings

9

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

retenue is aFrenchnoun. It means: Action de retenir. Pronounced \ʁə.tə.ny\. It ranks #5,496 in French word frequency. Often confused with revenu and rétine.

Key facts for retenue
PropertyValue
Headwordretenue
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʁə.tə.ny\
Letters7
Frequency rank#5,496
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for retenue is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʁə.tə.ny\. Corpus data places it at rank #5,496 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for retenue, with forms such as "ertenue", "reetnue", and "reteneu". 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, "revenu", "rétine", "revenus", 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 retenue, spelled R-E-T-E-N-U-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Action de retenir.
  2. 2
    Ce qu’on retient, ce qui est retenu, prélèvement sur une somme, un montant à payer.
  3. 3
    Chiffre, nombre que l’on retient.
  4. 4
    Privation de sortie, infligée à un écolier comme punition de quelque faute.
  5. 5
    Ce qui retient de l’eau, réservoir, digue, bassin, etc.
  6. 6
    Espace entre deux écluses où l’eau est retenue.
  7. 7
    Action de se retenir.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ertenue,reetnue,reteneu,retennue,reteune,retneue,rettenue,rretenue,rteenue

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for retenue

Misspelling Variants of "retenue"

ertenue7reetnue7reteneu7retennue8reteune7retneue7rettenue8rretenue8
Misspelling Variants of "retenue"

Frequency rank: #5,496 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "retenue"?
"retenue" is spelled R-E-T-E-N-U-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁə.tə.ny\.
What does "retenue" mean?
As a noun, "retenue" means: Action de retenir.
What words are commonly confused with "retenue"?
"retenue" is commonly confused with "revenu", "rétine", "revenus". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "retenue"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "retenue" is \ʁə.tə.ny\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "retenue" come from?
"retenue" 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.