regardavsrenardsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#17,540
“regarda” frequency rank
#26,849
“renards” frequency rank
44389
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature regarda renards
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de regarder. Pluriel de renard.

Where the eye mixes regarda and renards

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. regarda (CVCVCCV) and renards (CVCVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
regarda
7 ch
renards

Visual trap between regarda and renards

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: regarda is \ʁə.ɡaʁ.da\ while renards is \ʁə.naʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44389, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

regarda is recorded at frequency rank #17,540, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ɡaʁ.da\. renards is at rank #26,849, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.naʁ\.

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 44389, this pair ranks #210,803 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of regarda vs renards

Shared letters: ader. Private to "regarda": g. Private to "renards": ns.

"regarda" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "renards" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • regardaergarda · reagrda · regadra · regarad · regardda · regarrda · reggarda · regrada
  • renardsernards · reanrds · renadrs · renardds · renardss · renarrds · renarsd · rennards

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "regarda" for "renards" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "regarda" is a verb and "renards" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "regarda" or "renards" show up more?
"regarda" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,540 in our French list, against #26,849 for "renards". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "regarda" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "renards" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #210,803 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "regarda" and "renards" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rénales vs renards". 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 #210,803 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