retreat
The verdict
“retreat” is uncommon French (frequency #90,129 among 507,453 “R” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #90,129
- frequency rank, French
- 507,453
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Repli, retraite, recul.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | retreat |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #90,129 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “retreat” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
retreat is uncommon French at frequency #90,129 among 507,453 “R” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for retreat, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 retreat, spelled R-E-T-R-E-A-T.
Definition
- 1Repli, retraite, recul.
- 2Refuge, abri, retraite.
- 3Retraite pour se recueillir.
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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Using “retreat”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is R-E-T-R-E-A-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Other uncommon French words near this rank
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.