Which to use
“recevais” and “referais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,559
- “recevais” frequency rank
- #38,002
- “referais” frequency rank
- 74561
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | recevais | referais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de recevoir. | Première personne du singulier du conditionnel de refaire. |
Where the eye mixes recevais and referais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. recevais and referais follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between recevais and referais
A purely visual mix-up. recevais (\ʁə.sə.vɛ\) and referais (\ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
recevais is recorded at frequency rank #36,559, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.sə.vɛ\. referais is at rank #38,002, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\.
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 74561, this pair ranks #36,759 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of recevais vs referais
Shared letters: aeirs. Private to "recevais": cv. Private to "referais": f.
"recevais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC · "referais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "recevais" for "referais" ever safe?
Frequency check: "recevais" vs "referais" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "recevais" and "referais" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "recevais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "referais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #36,759 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "recevais" and "referais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recevais vs recevras". 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 #36,759 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.