reliaitvsretraitWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#40,960
“reliait” frequency rank
#3,501
“retrait” frequency rank
44461
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reliait retrait
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de relier. Action de retirer.

Where the eye mixes reliait and retrait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
reliait
7 ch
retrait

Visual trap between reliait and retrait

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: reliait is \ʁə.ljɛ\ while retrait is \ʁə.tʁɛ\. 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 44461, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reliait is recorded at frequency rank #40,960, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ljɛ\. retrait is at rank #3,501, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.tʁɛ\.

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 44461, this pair ranks #210,293 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reliait vs retrait

Shared letters: aeirt. Private to "reliait": l. Private to "retrait": -.

"reliait" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC  ·  "retrait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • reliaiterliait · reilait · relaiit · reliaitt · reliati · reliiat · relliait · rleiait
  • retraitertrait · rertait · retarit · retraitt · retrati · retriat · retrrait · rettrait

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "reliait" for "retrait" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "reliait" is a verb and "retrait" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "reliait" or "retrait"?
"retrait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,501 in our French list, against #40,960 for "reliait". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "reliait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "retrait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #210,293 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reliait" and "retrait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reliait 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 #210,293 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