restevsrteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#205
“reste” frequency rank
#27,606
“rte” frequency rank
27811
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reste rte
Definition 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. Route.

Where the eye mixes reste and rte

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

5 ch
reste
3 ch
rte

Why the eye confuses reste with rte

A purely visual mix-up. reste (\ʁɛst\) and rte (\ʁut\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27811, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reste is recorded at frequency rank #205, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛst\. rte is at rank #27,606, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁut\.

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 27811, this pair ranks #326,616 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reste vs rte

Shared letters: ert. Private to "reste": s. Private to "rte": -.

"reste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "rte" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • resteerste · resste · restte · retse · rreste · rsete

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "reste" and "rte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɛst\ versus \ʁut\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "reste" or "rte"?
"reste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #205 in our French list, against #27,606 for "rte". 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 "reste" and "rte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "reste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #326,616 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reste" and "rte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rog vs rte". 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 #326,616 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