Which to use
“refaire” is a verb and “repaire” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,357
- “refaire” frequency rank
- #20,549
- “repaire” frequency rank
- 23906
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | refaire | repaire |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Faire de nouveau ce qu’on a déjà fait. | Lieu où se réunissent et se cachent bandits, malfaiteurs, voleurs, etc. |
Where the eye mixes refaire and repaire
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. refaire and repaire follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: refaire vs repaire
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: refaire is \ʁə.fɛʁ\ while repaire is \ʁə.pɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - f in “refaire” becomes p in “repaire”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23906, 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\. repaire is at rank #20,549, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.pɛʁ\.
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 23906, this pair ranks #349,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of refaire vs repaire
Shared letters: aeir. Private to "refaire": f. Private to "repaire": p.
"refaire" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV · "repaire" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "refaire" and "repaire" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "refaire" or "repaire"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "refaire" and "repaire" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "refaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "repaire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #349,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "refaire" and "repaire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "repaire vs reparlé". 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 #349,766 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.