recifevsrécifsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“recife” and “récifs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#49,319
“recife” frequency rank
#27,951
“récifs” frequency rank
77270
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recife récifs
Definition Récif, écueil. Pluriel de récif.

Where the eye mixes recife and récifs

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

6 ch
recife
6 ch
récifs

Look-alike desk: recife vs récifs

A purely visual mix-up. recife (\ʀɨ.sˈi.fɨ\) and récifs (\ʁe.sif\) 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 77270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recife is recorded at frequency rank #49,319, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʀɨ.sˈi.fɨ\. récifs is at rank #27,951, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.sif\.

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 77270, this pair ranks #28,878 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of recife vs récifs

Shared letters: cfir. Private to "recife": e. Private to "récifs": sé.

"recife" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "récifs" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recife ← ercife · rceife · reccife · recfie · recief · reciffe · reicfe · rrecife

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "recife" and "récifs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʀɨ.sˈi.fɨ\ versus \ʁe.sif\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "recife" or "récifs"?
"récifs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,951 in our French list, against #49,319 for "recife". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recife" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "récifs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,878 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recife" and "récifs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recife vs recréé". 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 #28,878 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