Which to use
“recoucher” and “retoucher” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #48,145
- “recoucher” frequency rank
- #37,039
- “retoucher” frequency rank
- 85184
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | recoucher | retoucher |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Coucher de nouveau ; remettre au lit. | Toucher de nouveau. |
Where the eye mixes recoucher and retoucher
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. recoucher and retoucher follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between recoucher and retoucher
A purely visual mix-up. recoucher (\ʁə.ku.ʃe\) and retoucher (\ʁə.tu.ʃe\) 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 a single letter - c in “recoucher” becomes t in “retoucher”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85184, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
recoucher is recorded at frequency rank #48,145, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ku.ʃe\. retoucher is at rank #37,039, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.tu.ʃe\.
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 85184, this pair ranks #11,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of recoucher vs retoucher
Shared letters: cehoru. Private to "recoucher": -. Private to "retoucher": t.
"recoucher" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVC · "retoucher" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "recoucher" and "retoucher" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "recoucher" or "retoucher" show up more?
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 "recoucher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "retoucher" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #11,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "recoucher" and "retoucher" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recoucher vs recracher". 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 #11,758 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.