retourner sur ses pas

verb

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

The verdict

“retourner sur ses pas” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
21
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Revenir après s’être éloigné.

Key facts for retourner sur ses pas
PropertyValue
Headwordretourner sur ses pas
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
Letters21
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “retourner sur ses pas” sits in French frequency

retourner sur ses pas falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for retourner sur ses pas is 21 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Revenir après s’être éloigné.".

retourner sur ses pas has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is retourner sur ses pas, spelled R-E-T-O-U-R-N-E-R- -S-U-R- -S-E-S- -P-A-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Revenir après s’être éloigné.

Synonyms

revenir sur ses pass’en retourners’en revenirfaire marche arrière

This word in other languages

backtrack(English)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "retourner sur ses pas"?
"retourner sur ses pas" is spelled R-E-T-O-U-R-N-E-R- -S-U-R- -S-E-S- -P-A-S.
What does "retourner sur ses pas" mean?
As a verb, "retourner sur ses pas" means: Revenir après s’être éloigné.
What language does "retourner sur ses pas" come from?
"retourner sur ses pas" 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.

Using “retourner sur ses pas”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is R-E-T-O-U-R-N-E-R- -S-U-R- -S-E-S- -P-A-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list