Which to use
“recife” and “rétine” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #49,319
- “recife” frequency rank
- #27,956
- “rétine” frequency rank
- 77275
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | recife | rétine |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Récif, écueil. | Membrane formée par la terminaison du nerf optique dans le fond de l’œil et sur laquelle viennent se former les images des objets provoquant les sensations lumineuses. |
Where the eye mixes recife and rétine
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. recife and rétine follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: recife vs rétine
A purely visual mix-up. recife (\ʀɨ.sˈi.fɨ\) and rétine (\ʁe.tin\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77275, 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\. rétine is at rank #27,956, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.tin\.
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 77275, this pair ranks #28,861 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of recife vs rétine
Shared letters: eir. Private to "recife": cf. Private to "rétine": nté.
"recife" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "rétine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- recife ← ercife · rceife · reccife · recfie · recief · reciffe · reicfe · rrecife
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "recife" for "rétine" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "recife" or "rétine" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "recife" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "rétine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #28,861 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "recife" and "rétine" 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 #28,861 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.