referavsreferaisTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,460
“refera” frequency rank
#38,002
“referais” frequency rank
78462
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refera referais
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du futur de refaire. Première personne du singulier du conditionnel de refaire.

Where the eye mixes refera and referais

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
refera
8 ch
referais

Visual trap between refera and referais

A purely visual mix-up. refera (\ʁə.fə.ʁa\) and referais (\ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “refera” sits inside “referais”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78462, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

refera is recorded at frequency rank #40,460, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fə.ʁa\. referais is at rank #38,002, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\.

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 78462, this pair ranks #25,669 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of refera vs referais

Shared letters: aefr. Private to "refera": -. Private to "referais": is.

"refera" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "referais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • referaerfera · reefra · refear · referra · reffera · refrea · rfeera · rrefera
  • referaiserferais · reefrais · refearis · referaiss · referasi · referias · referrais · refferais

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "refera" for "referais" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.fə.ʁa\ versus \ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "refera" vs "referais" - which ranks higher?
"referais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,002 in our French list, against #40,460 for "refera". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "refera" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "referais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,669 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refera" and "referais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "referais vs rendrais". 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 #25,669 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