rétorquer
\ʁe.tɔʁ.ke\
The verdict
“rétorquer” is uncommon French (frequency #54,879 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,879
- frequency rank, French
- 5,742
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Retourner contre son adversaire les raisons, les arguments, les preuves dont il s’est servi.
Corpus desk
Index FR-retorquer · rétorquer · French
rétorquer · rank #54,879 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #54,879
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,742
- PHOTO-FINISH rétablissant
Nearest frequency peer: rétablissant (-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 « rétorquer »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- républicani…
républicanisme
45,125 corpus weight
- réquisition…
réquisitionner
45,124 corpus weight
- rétablissant
rétablissant
45,123 corpus weight
- rétorquer
rétorquer
45,122 corpus weight
- rétracté
rétracté
45,121 corpus weight
- rétrospecti…
rétrospectives
45,120 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « rétorquer » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rétorquer |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ʁe.tɔʁ.ke\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #54,879 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « rétorquer » en français
Rare enough to double-check
rétorquer is uncommon French at frequency #54,879 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ʁe.tɔʁ.ke\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Retourner contre son adversaire les raisons, les arguments, les preuves dont il s’est servi.".
rétorquer has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is rétorquer, spelled R-É-T-O-R-Q-U-E-R.
Definition
- 1Retourner contre son adversaire les raisons, les arguments, les preuves dont il s’est servi.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how rétorquer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Vous savez vous-même, Bénédict, combien il serait facile de rétorquer cette hyperbolique satire.
Mrs. Paulina Barnett aurait pu facilement rétorquer cette argumentation, mais il ne lui déplaisait pas d’entendre Jasper Hobson s’exprimer avec cette ardeur.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "rétorquer", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).