recruevsrecruesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: recrue is a noun, recrues is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“recrue” is a noun and “recrues” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,039
“recrue” frequency rank
#13,460
“recrues” frequency rank
25499
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recrue recrues
Definition Levée de soldat remplaçant ceux qui manquent. Féminin pluriel de recru.

Same sound, different letters: recrue vs recrues

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
recrue
7 ch
recrues

Same sound, different spelling - recrue / recrues

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: recrue and recrues carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʁə.kʁy\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “recrue” sits inside “recrues”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25499, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recrue is recorded at frequency rank #12,039, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.kʁy\. recrues is at rank #13,460, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.kʁy\.

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 25499, this pair ranks #340,508 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of recrue vs recrues

Shared letters: ceru. Private to "recrue": -. Private to "recrues": s.

"recrue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "recrues" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recrueercrue · rcerue · reccrue · recreu · recrrue · recure · rercue · rrecrue
  • recruesercrues · rcerues · reccrues · recreus · recrrues · recruess · recruse · recures

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "recrue" for "recrues" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "recrue" is a noun and "recrues" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "recrue" or "recrues"?
"recrue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,039 in our French list, against #13,460 for "recrues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"recrue" and "recrues" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "recrue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "recrues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,508 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recrue" and "recrues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recife vs recrue". 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 #340,508 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