Which to use
“rétine” is a noun and “retira” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,956
- “rétine” frequency rank
- #23,349
- “retira” frequency rank
- 51305
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rétine | retira |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Membrane formée par la terminaison du nerf optique dans le fond de l’œil et sur laquelle viennent se former les images des objets provoquant les sensations lumineuses. | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe retirer. |
Where the eye mixes rétine and retira
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. rétine and retira follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between rétine and retira
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rétine is \ʁe.tin\ while retira is \ʁə.ti.ʁa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 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 51305, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rétine is recorded at frequency rank #27,956, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.tin\. retira is at rank #23,349, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ti.ʁa\.
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 51305, this pair ranks #156,043 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of rétine vs retira
Shared letters: eirt. Private to "rétine": né. Private to "retira": a.
"rétine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "retira" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- retira ← ertira · reitra · retiar · retirra · retria · rettira · rretira · rteira
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "rétine" for "retira" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "rétine" or "retira" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "rétine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "retira" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #156,043 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rétine" and "retira" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recife vs rétine". 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 #156,043 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.