reevesvsreinesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#26,154
“reeves” frequency rank
#15,229
“reines” frequency rank
41383
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature reeves reines
Definition Pluriel de reeve. Pluriel de reine.

Where the eye mixes reeves and reines

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. reeves and reines follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
reeves
6 ch
reines

Visual trap between reeves and reines

A purely visual mix-up. reeves (\ʁiv\) and reines (\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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41383, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

reeves is recorded at frequency rank #26,154, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁiv\. reines is at rank #15,229, 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 41383, this pair ranks #233,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of reeves vs reines

Shared letters: ers. Private to "reeves": v. Private to "reines": in.

"reeves" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "reines" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • reeves ← ereves · reeevs · reevess · reevse · reevves · revees · reves · rreeves
  • reines ← erines · reiens · reiness · reinnes · reinse · renies · rienes · rreines

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "reeves" and "reines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁiv\ versus \ʁɛn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "reeves" or "reines" show up more?
"reines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,229 in our French list, against #26,154 for "reeves". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "reeves" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #233,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "reeves" and "reines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reeves vs relevez". 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 #233,477 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