révélaitvsrevenantWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: révélait is a verb, revenant is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“révélait” is a verb and “revenant” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,804
“révélait” frequency rank
#9,382
“revenant” frequency rank
35186
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature révélait revenant
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de révéler. Qui revient.

Where the eye mixes révélait and revenant

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. révélait (CVCVCVVC) and revenant (CVCVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
révélait
8 ch
revenant

Look-alike desk: révélait vs revenant

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: révélait is \ʁe.ve.lɛ\ while revenant is \ʁə.və.nɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

révélait is recorded at frequency rank #25,804, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁe.ve.lɛ\. revenant is at rank #9,382, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.və.nɑ̃\.

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 35186, this pair ranks #278,559 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of révélait vs revenant

Shared letters: artv. Private to "révélait": ilé. Private to "revenant": en.

"révélait" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "revenant" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • revenant ← ervenant · reevnant · reveannt · revenannt · revenantt · revenatn · revennant · revennat

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "révélait" and "revenant" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "révélait" is a verb and "revenant" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "révélait" or "revenant"?
"revenant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,382 in our French list, against #25,804 for "révélait". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "révélait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "revenant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #278,559 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "révélait" and "revenant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rejetait vs révélait". 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 #278,559 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