recifevsrécréWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#49,319
“recife” frequency rank
#21,457
“récré” frequency rank
70776
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recife récré
Definition Récif, écueil. Période de la journée scolaire durant laquelle les enfants peuvent sortir et s’amuser.

Where the eye mixes recife and récré

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. recife runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against récré's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
recife
5 ch
récré

Visual trap between recife and récré

A purely visual mix-up. recife (\ʀɨ.sˈi.fɨ\) and récré (\ʁe.kʁe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70776, 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\. récré is at rank #21,457, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.kʁe\.

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 70776, this pair ranks #50,073 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of recife vs récré

Shared letters: cr. Private to "recife": efi. Private to "récré": é.

"recife" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "récré" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "recife" and "récré" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʀɨ.sˈi.fɨ\ versus \ʁe.kʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "recife" or "récré"?
"récré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,457 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recife" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "récré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,073 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recife" and "récré" 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 #50,073 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