reliquevsrévoquéConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#24,358
“relique” frequency rank
#29,532
“révoqué” frequency rank
53890
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature relique révoqué
Definition Ce qui reste d’un saint, d’un martyr, voire de Jésus-Christ lui-même, après sa mort. Participe passé masculin singulier de révoquer.

Where the eye mixes relique and révoqué

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

7 ch
relique
7 ch
révoqué

Look-alike desk: relique vs révoqué

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: relique is \ʁə.lik\ while révoqué is \ʁe.vɔ.ke\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53890, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

relique is recorded at frequency rank #24,358, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.lik\. révoqué is at rank #29,532, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.vɔ.ke\.

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 53890, this pair ranks #137,747 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of relique vs révoqué

Shared letters: qru. Private to "relique": eil. Private to "révoqué": ové.

"relique" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "révoqué" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • relique ← erlique · reilque · reliqeu · reliqque · reliuqe · rellique · relqiue · rleique

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "relique" and "révoqué" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "relique" is a noun and "révoqué" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "relique" or "révoqué"?
"relique" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,358 in our French list, against #29,532 for "révoqué". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "relique" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "révoqué" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #137,747 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "relique" and "révoqué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rétorqué vs révoqué". 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 #137,747 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