relaivsrepasTell them apart

Which to use

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

#32,558
“relai” frequency rank
#1,934
“repas” frequency rank
34492
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature relai repas
Definition Action de relayer : résultat de cette action. Nourriture que l’on prend pour s’alimenter pendant une période spécifiquement consacrée à cette activité, souvent à des heures régulières de la journée.

Where the eye mixes relai and repas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
relai
5 ch
repas

Why the eye confuses relai with repas

A purely visual mix-up. relai (\ʁə.lɛ\) and repas (\ʁə.pɑ\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34492, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

relai is recorded at frequency rank #32,558, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.lɛ\. repas is at rank #1,934, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.pɑ\.

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 34492, this pair ranks #283,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of relai vs repas

Shared letters: aer. Private to "relai": il. Private to "repas": ps.

"relai" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "repas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • relaierlai · reali · relia · rellai · rleai · rrelai
  • repaserpas · reaps · repass · reppas · repsa · rpeas · rrepas

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "relai" and "repas" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.lɛ\ versus \ʁə.pɑ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "relai" or "repas" show up more?
"repas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,934 in our French list, against #32,558 for "relai". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "relai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "repas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #283,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "relai" and "repas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "relai vs relit". 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 #283,472 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