reçuvsricoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#813
“reçu” frequency rank
#13,681
“rico” frequency rank
14494
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reçu rico
Definition Qui est admis, établi, consacré. Riche.

Where the eye mixes reçu and rico

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

4 ch
reçu
4 ch
rico

Look-alike desk: reçu vs rico

A purely visual mix-up. reçu (\ʁə.sy\) and rico (\ˈri.ko\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14494, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reçu is recorded at frequency rank #813, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.sy\. rico is at rank #13,681, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈri.ko\.

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 14494, this pair ranks #396,398 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of reçu vs rico

Shared letters: r. Private to "reçu": euç. Private to "rico": cio.

"reçu" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "rico" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ricoirco · rcio · ricco · rioc · rrico

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "reçu" and "rico" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.sy\ versus \ˈri.ko\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "reçu" vs "rico" - which ranks higher?
"reçu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #813 in our French list, against #13,681 for "rico". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "reçu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rico" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #396,398 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reçu" and "rico" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rico vs rizzo". 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 #396,398 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