restauvsresteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,805
“restau” frequency rank
#205
“reste” frequency rank
18010
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature restau reste
Definition Restaurant. Ce qui demeure d’un tout, d’une plus grande quantité ; ce qui subsiste d’une chose passée, tant au sens physique qu’au sens moral.

Where the eye mixes restau and reste

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

6 ch
restau
5 ch
reste

Visual trap between restau and reste

A purely visual mix-up. restau (\ʁɛs.to\) and reste (\ʁɛst\) 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 18010, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

restau is recorded at frequency rank #17,805, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛs.to\. reste is at rank #205, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛst\.

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 18010, this pair ranks #380,412 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of restau vs reste

Shared letters: erst. Private to "restau": au. Private to "reste": -.

"restau" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "reste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • restauerstau · resatu · resstau · resttau · restua · retsau · rrestau · rsetau
  • resteerste · resste · restte · retse · rreste · rsete

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "restau" for "reste" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɛs.to\ versus \ʁɛst\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "restau" vs "reste" - which ranks higher?
"reste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #205 in our French list, against #17,805 for "restau". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "restau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #380,412 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "restau" and "reste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rasta vs restau". 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 #380,412 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