refaitsvsrenaîtWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: refaits is a adjective, renaît is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“refaits” is an adjective and “renaît” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,563
“refaits” frequency rank
#28,327
“renaît” frequency rank
75890
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refaits renaît
Definition Masculin pluriel de refait. Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de renaître.

Where the eye mixes refaits and renaît

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

7 ch
refaits
6 ch
renaît

Why the eye confuses refaits with renaît

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: refaits is \ʁə.fɛ\ while renaît is \ʁə.nɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75890, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

refaits is recorded at frequency rank #47,563, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.fɛ\. renaît is at rank #28,327, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.nɛ\.

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 75890, this pair ranks #32,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of refaits vs renaît

Shared letters: aert. Private to "refaits": fis. Private to "renaît": .

"refaits" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCC  ·  "renaît" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • refaitserfaits · reafits · refaist · refaitss · refaitts · refatis · reffaits · refiats

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "refaits" for "renaît" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "refaits" is an adjective and "renaît" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "refaits" or "renaît" show up more?
"renaît" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,327 in our French list, against #47,563 for "refaits". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "refaits" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "renaît" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refaits" and "renaît" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "refaits vs refrains". 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 #32,732 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