rectovsrestosTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,355
“recto” frequency rank
#15,232
“restos” frequency rank
39587
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recto restos
Definition Première page d’un feuillet, par opposition au verso, qui est la seconde page, celle qui se trouve au revers du feuillet. Pluriel de resto.

Where the eye mixes recto and restos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
recto
6 ch
restos

Look-alike desk: recto vs restos

A purely visual mix-up. recto (\ʁɛk.to\) and restos (\ʁɛs.tɔ\) 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 39587, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recto is recorded at frequency rank #24,355, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛk.to\. restos is at rank #15,232, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛs.tɔ\.

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 39587, this pair ranks #246,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of recto vs restos

Shared letters: eort. Private to "recto": c. Private to "restos": s.

"recto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "restos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rectoercto · rceto · reccto · recot · rectto · retco · rrecto
  • restoserstos · resots · resstos · restoss · restso · resttos · retsos · rrestos

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "recto" and "restos" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɛk.to\ versus \ʁɛs.tɔ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "recto" vs "restos" - which ranks higher?
"restos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,232 in our French list, against #24,355 for "recto". 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 "recto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "restos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #246,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recto" and "restos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Recep vs recto". 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 #246,864 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