révoluvsRivoliTell them apart

Quick tell: révolu is a adjective, Rivoli is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#27,228
“révolu” frequency rank
#31,228
“Rivoli” frequency rank
58456
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature révolu Rivoli
Definition Cours des planètes et des astres, lorsque, par leur mouvement périodique, ils sont revenus au même point. Commune d’Italie de la ville métropolitaine de Turin dans la région du Piémont.

Where the eye mixes révolu and Rivoli

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. révolu and Rivoli follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
révolu
6 ch
Rivoli

Why the eye confuses révolu with Rivoli

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: révolu is \ʁe.vɔ.ly\ while Rivoli is \ʁi.vo.li\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

révolu is recorded at frequency rank #27,228, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁe.vɔ.ly\. Rivoli is at rank #31,228, tagged as aname, pronounced \ʁi.vo.li\.

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 58456, this pair ranks #108,976 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of révolu vs Rivoli

Shared letters: lorv. Private to "révolu": ué. Private to "Rivoli": i.

"révolu" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "Rivoli" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Rivoli ← irvoli · riovli · rivloi · rivoil · rivolli · rivvoli · rrivoli · rvioli

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "révolu" and "Rivoli" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "révolu" is an adjective and "Rivoli" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "révolu" or "Rivoli" show up more?
"révolu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,228 in our French list, against #31,228 for "Rivoli". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "révolu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Rivoli" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #108,976 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "révolu" and "Rivoli" 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 #108,976 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