regimevsrétineWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#25,105
“regime” frequency rank
#27,956
“rétine” frequency rank
53061
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature regime rétine
Definition Régime. Membrane formée par la terminaison du nerf optique dans le fond de l’œil et sur laquelle viennent se former les images des objets provoquant les sensations lumineuses.

Where the eye mixes regime and rétine

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. regime and rétine follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
regime
6 ch
rétine

Look-alike desk: regime vs rétine

A purely visual mix-up. regime (\ɹeɪ.ˈʒiːm\) and rétine (\ʁe.tin\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53061, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

regime is recorded at frequency rank #25,105, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɹeɪ.ˈʒiːm\. rétine is at rank #27,956, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.tin\.

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 53061, this pair ranks #143,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of regime vs rétine

Shared letters: eir. Private to "regime": gm. Private to "rétine": nté.

"regime" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "rétine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • regime ← ergime · reggime · regiem · regimme · regmie · reigme · rgeime · rregime

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "regime" for "rétine" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɹeɪ.ˈʒiːm\ versus \ʁe.tin\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "regime" or "rétine"?
"regime" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,105 in our French list, against #27,956 for "rétine". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "regime" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rétine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #143,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "regime" and "rétine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recife vs rétine". 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 #143,378 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