rébusvsrepasWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“rébus” and “repas” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#47,013
“rébus” frequency rank
#1,934
“repas” frequency rank
48947
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rébus repas
Definition Jeu d’esprit qui consiste à représenter un mot, un nom ou une phrase par des figures d’objets dont les noms offrent à l’oreille une ressemblance avec ce mot, ce nom, cette phrase. Nourriture que l’on prend pour s’alimenter pendant une période spécifiquement consacrée à cette activité, souvent à des heures régulières de la journée.

Where the eye mixes rébus and repas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. rébus and repas follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
rébus
5 ch
repas

Why the eye confuses rébus with repas

A purely visual mix-up. rébus (\ʁe.by\) and repas (\ʁə.pɑ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48947, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rébus is recorded at frequency rank #47,013, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.by\. repas is at rank #1,934, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.pɑ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 48947, this pair ranks #174,771 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rébus vs repas

Shared letters: rs. Private to "rébus": bué. Private to "repas": aep.

"rébus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "repas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • repas ← erpas · reaps · repass · reppas · repsa · rpeas · rrepas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rébus" and "repas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁe.by\ versus \ʁə.pɑ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "rébus" or "repas"?
"repas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,934 in our French list, against #47,013 for "rébus". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rébus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "repas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #174,771 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rébus" and "repas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rébus vs Reis". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #174,771 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list