récrévsrenneTell them apart

Which to use

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

#21,457
“récré” frequency rank
#32,562
“renne” frequency rank
54019
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature récré renne
Definition Période de la journée scolaire durant laquelle les enfants peuvent sortir et s’amuser. Mammifère des régions arctiques et subarctiques, de la famille des cervidés, sauvage ou domestiqué et dont les bois sont aplatis et dentelés.

Where the eye mixes récré and renne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. récré and renne follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
récré
5 ch
renne

Visual trap between récré and renne

A purely visual mix-up. récré (\ʁe.kʁe\) and renne (\ʁɛn\) 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 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54019, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

récré is recorded at frequency rank #21,457, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.kʁe\. renne is at rank #32,562, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛn\.

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 54019, this pair ranks #136,854 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of récré vs renne

Shared letters: r. Private to "récré": cé. Private to "renne": en.

"récré" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "renne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • renne ← ernne · renen · rnene · rrenne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "récré" for "renne" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁe.kʁe\ versus \ʁɛn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "récré" or "renne"?
"récré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,457 in our French list, against #32,562 for "renne". 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 "récré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "renne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #136,854 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "récré" and "renne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rénal vs renne". 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 #136,854 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