redoutervsrenouerTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,681
“redouter” frequency rank
#18,305
“renouer” frequency rank
49986
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature redouter renouer
Definition Craindre fort. Nouer une chose dénouée, séparée.

Where the eye mixes redouter and renouer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

8 ch
redouter
7 ch
renouer

Visual trap between redouter and renouer

A purely visual mix-up. redouter (\ʁə.du.te\) and renouer (\ʁə.nwe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49986, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

redouter is recorded at frequency rank #31,681, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.du.te\. renouer is at rank #18,305, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.nwe\.

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 49986, this pair ranks #166,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of redouter vs renouer

Shared letters: eoru. Private to "redouter": dt. Private to "renouer": n.

"redouter" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVC  ·  "renouer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • redoutererdouter · rdeouter · reddouter · redotuer · redouetr · redouterr · redoutre · redoutter
  • renouerernouer · rennouer · renoeur · renouerr · renoure · renuoer · reonuer · rneouer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "redouter" and "renouer" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.du.te\ versus \ʁə.nwe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "redouter" vs "renouer" - which ranks higher?
"renouer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,305 in our French list, against #31,681 for "redouter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "redouter" and "renouer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "redouter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "renouer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #166,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "redouter" and "renouer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recouper vs redouter". 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 #166,219 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