rendrevsreniéWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#514
“rendre” frequency rank
#29,515
“renié” frequency rank
30029
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rendre renié
Definition Remettre une chose entre les mains de celui à qui elle appartient, de quelque manière qu’on l’ait eue. Participe passé masculin singulier de renier.

Where the eye mixes rendre and renié

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

6 ch
rendre
5 ch
renié

Look-alike desk: rendre vs renié

A purely visual mix-up. rendre (\ʁɑ̃dʁ\) and renié (\ʁə.nje\) 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 30029, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rendre is recorded at frequency rank #514, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁɑ̃dʁ\. renié is at rank #29,515, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.nje\.

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 30029, this pair ranks #312,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rendre vs renié

Shared letters: enr. Private to "rendre": d. Private to "renié": .

"rendre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "renié" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rendreerndre · rednre · renddre · render · rendrre · renndre · renrde · rnedre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "rendre" and "renié" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɑ̃dʁ\ versus \ʁə.nje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "rendre" or "renié"?
"rendre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #514 in our French list, against #29,515 for "renié". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rendre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "renié" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #312,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rendre" and "renié" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "relit vs renié". 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 #312,920 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