revenuvsrévoluTell them apart

Quick tell: revenu is a noun, révolu is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“revenu” is a noun and “révolu” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,344
“revenu” frequency rank
#27,228
“révolu” frequency rank
28572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature revenu révolu
Definition Ce qu’on retire annuellement d’un domaine, d’un emploi, d’une pension, d’une constitution de rente, etc. Cours des planètes et des astres, lorsque, par leur mouvement périodique, ils sont revenus au même point.

Where the eye mixes revenu and révolu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. revenu and révolu follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
revenu
6 ch
révolu

Visual trap between revenu and révolu

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: revenu is \ʁ(ə.)v(ə.)ny\ while révolu is \ʁe.vɔ.ly\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

revenu is recorded at frequency rank #1,344, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁ(ə.)v(ə.)ny\. révolu is at rank #27,228, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁe.vɔ.ly\.

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 28572, this pair ranks #321,959 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of revenu vs révolu

Shared letters: ruv. Private to "revenu": en. Private to "révolu": loé.

"revenu" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "révolu" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • revenu ← ervenu · reevnu · revennu · reveun · revneu · revvenu · rrevenu · rveenu

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "revenu" and "révolu" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "revenu" is a noun and "révolu" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "revenu" or "révolu" show up more?
"revenu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,344 in our French list, against #27,228 for "révolu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "revenu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "révolu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #321,959 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "revenu" and "révolu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "révolu vs révolus". 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 #321,959 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