récitvsrevisWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: récit is a noun, revis is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“récit” is a noun and “revis” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,797
“récit” frequency rank
#43,122
“revis” frequency rank
45919
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature récit revis
Definition Exposé structuré d’événements réels ou fictifs destiné à être raconté ou lu. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe revivre.

Where the eye mixes récit and revis

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

5 ch
récit
5 ch
revis

Why the eye confuses récit with revis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: récit is \ʁe.si\ while revis is \ʁə.vi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45919, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

récit is recorded at frequency rank #2,797, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.si\. revis is at rank #43,122, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.vi\.

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 45919, this pair ranks #199,054 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of récit vs revis

Shared letters: ir. Private to "récit": cté. Private to "revis": esv.

"récit" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "revis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • revis ← ervis · reivs · reviss · revsi · revvis · rrevis · rveis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "récit" and "revis" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "récit" is a noun and "revis" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "récit" or "revis" show up more?
"récit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,797 in our French list, against #43,122 for "revis". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "récit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "revis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #199,054 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "récit" and "revis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "relit vs revis". 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 #199,054 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