Which to use
“regards” and “retard” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,698
- “regards” frequency rank
- #1,494
- “retard” frequency rank
- 7192
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | regards | retard |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de regard. | Fait d’arriver, de se produire plus tard que prévu, d’agir trop tard ; délai, remise, ralentissement. |
Where the eye mixes regards and retard
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: regards vs retard
A purely visual mix-up. regards (\ʁə.ɡaʁ\) and retard (\ʁə.taʁ\) 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 7192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
regards is recorded at frequency rank #5,698, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.ɡaʁ\. retard is at rank #1,494, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.taʁ\.
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 7192, this pair ranks #423,907 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of regards vs retard
Shared letters: ader. Private to "regards": gs. Private to "retard": t.
"regards" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC · "retard" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "regards" and "retard" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "regards" or "retard" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "regards" and "retard" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "regards" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "retard" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #423,907 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "regards" and "retard" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "regards vs régates". 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 #423,907 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.