recourirvsréjouirWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,547
“recourir” frequency rank
#12,046
“réjouir” frequency rank
21593
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recourir réjouir
Definition Courir de nouveau. Donner de la joie.

Where the eye mixes recourir and réjouir

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. recourir runs 8 letters (CVCVVCVC) against réjouir's 7 (CVCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
recourir
7 ch
réjouir

Look-alike desk: recourir vs réjouir

A purely visual mix-up. recourir (\ʁə.ku.ʁiʁ\) and réjouir (\ʁe.ʒwiʁ\) 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 21593, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recourir is recorded at frequency rank #9,547, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.ku.ʁiʁ\. réjouir is at rank #12,046, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.ʒwiʁ\.

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 21593, this pair ranks #362,374 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of recourir vs réjouir

Shared letters: ioru. Private to "recourir": ce. Private to "réjouir": jé.

"recourir" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVC  ·  "réjouir" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recourir ← ercourir · rceourir · reccourir · recoruir · recouirr · recourirr · recourri · recourrir

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "recourir" for "réjouir" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.ku.ʁiʁ\ versus \ʁe.ʒwiʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "recourir" or "réjouir"?
"recourir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,547 in our French list, against #12,046 for "réjouir". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recourir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "réjouir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #362,374 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recourir" and "réjouir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rejoué vs réjouir". 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 #362,374 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