repasvsreposéConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#1,934
“repas” frequency rank
#25,794
“reposé” frequency rank
27728
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature repas reposé
Definition Nourriture que l’on prend pour s’alimenter pendant une période spécifiquement consacrée à cette activité, souvent à des heures régulières de la journée. Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe reposer.

Where the eye mixes repas and reposé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
repas
6 ch
reposé

Visual trap between repas and reposé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: repas is \ʁə.pɑ\ while reposé is \ʁə.po.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

repas is recorded at frequency rank #1,934, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.pɑ\. reposé is at rank #25,794, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.po.ze\.

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 27728, this pair ranks #327,163 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of repas vs reposé

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "repas": a. Private to "reposé": .

"repas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "reposé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • repaserpas · reaps · repass · reppas · repsa · rpeas · rrepas

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "repas" for "reposé" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "repas" is a noun and "reposé" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "repas" or "reposé" show up more?
"repas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,934 in our French list, against #25,794 for "reposé". 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 "repas" and "reposé" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "repas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reposé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #327,163 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "repas" and "reposé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rejoué vs reposé". 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 #327,163 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