rétorsion
\ʁe.tɔʁ.sjɔ̃\
The verdict
“rétorsion” is uncommon French (frequency #54,242 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,242
- frequency rank, French
- 5,742
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Action de rétorquer.
Corpus desk
Index FR-retorsion · rétorsion · French
rétorsion · rank #54,242 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #54,242
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,742
- PHOTO-FINISH répliqua
Nearest frequency peer: répliqua (-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 « rétorsion »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- réinventé
réinventé
45,762 corpus weight
- répandant
répandant
45,761 corpus weight
- répliqua
répliqua
45,760 corpus weight
- rétorsion
rétorsion
45,759 corpus weight
- sablons
sablons
45,758 corpus weight
- samar
samar
45,757 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « rétorsion » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rétorsion |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʁe.tɔʁ.sjɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #54,242 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « rétorsion » en français
Rare enough to double-check
rétorsion is uncommon French at frequency #54,242 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʁe.tɔʁ.sjɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for rétorsion in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, 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 rétorsion, spelled R-É-T-O-R-S-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1Action de rétorquer.
- 2Action de coercition licite, prise par un État à l'encontre d'un autre État, en réponse à une mesure de même nature.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how rétorsion appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Cet argument est sujet à rétorsion.
La rétorsion de l’argument consiste à prendre l’argument de l’adversaire pour démontrer le contraire de ce qu’il veut prouver.
Synonyms
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 "rétorsion", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).