reelvsrévélaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#27,593
“reel” frequency rank
#28,341
“révéla” frequency rank
55934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reel révéla
Definition Format de vidéo courte sur Instagram. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de révéler.

Where the eye mixes reel and révéla

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. reel runs 4 letters (CVVC) against révéla's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
reel
6 ch
révéla

Look-alike desk: reel vs révéla

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reel is \ʁe.ɛl\ while révéla is \ʁe.ve.la\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reel is recorded at frequency rank #27,593, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.ɛl\. révéla is at rank #28,341, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.ve.la\.

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 55934, this pair ranks #124,247 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reel vs révéla

Shared letters: lr. Private to "reel": e. Private to "révéla": avé.

"reel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "révéla" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • reel ← erel · reell · rele · rreel

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "reel" and "révéla" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reel" is a noun and "révéla" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "reel" or "révéla" show up more?
"reel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,593 in our French list, against #28,341 for "révéla". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "reel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "révéla" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #124,247 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reel" and "révéla" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reel 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 #124,247 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