referaivsreferaisWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#42,001
“referai” frequency rank
#38,002
“referais” frequency rank
80003
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes referai and referais

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. referai runs 7 letters (CVCVCVV) against referais's 8 (CVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
referai
8 ch
referais

Look-alike desk: referai vs referais

A purely visual mix-up. referai (\ʁə.fə.ʁe\) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “referai” sits inside “referais”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80003, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

referai is recorded at frequency rank #42,001, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fə.ʁe\. 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 80003, this pair ranks #21,973 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of referai vs referais

Shared letters: aefir. Private to "referai": -. Private to "referais": s.

"referai" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "referais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • referaierferai · reefrai · refeari · referia · referrai · refferai · refreai · rfeerai
  • referaiserferais · reefrais · refearis · referaiss · referasi · referias · referrais · refferais

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "referai" and "referais" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.fə.ʁe\ versus \ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "referai" or "referais"?
"referais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,002 in our French list, against #42,001 for "referai". 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 "referai" and "referais" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "referai" 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 #21,973 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "referai" and "referais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recevrai vs referai". 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 #21,973 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