refairevsrefiléTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,357
“refaire” frequency rank
#35,239
“refilé” frequency rank
38596
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refaire refilé
Definition Faire de nouveau ce qu’on a déjà fait. Participe passé masculin singulier de refiler.

Where the eye mixes refaire and refilé

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

7 ch
refaire
6 ch
refilé

Why the eye confuses refaire with refilé

A purely visual mix-up. refaire (\ʁə.fɛʁ\) and refilé (\ʁə.fi.le\) 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 38596, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

refaire is recorded at frequency rank #3,357, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fɛʁ\. refilé is at rank #35,239, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fi.le\.

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 38596, this pair ranks #254,173 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of refaire vs refilé

Shared letters: efir. Private to "refaire": a. Private to "refilé": .

"refaire" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV  ·  "refilé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • refaireerfaire · reafire · refaier · refairre · refarie · reffaire · refiare · rfeaire

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "refaire" and "refilé" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.fɛʁ\ versus \ʁə.fi.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "refaire" vs "refilé" - which ranks higher?
"refaire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,357 in our French list, against #35,239 for "refilé". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "refaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "refilé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #254,173 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refaire" and "refilé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recife vs refilé". 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 #254,173 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