Which to use
“referais” and “revenais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,002
- “referais” frequency rank
- #30,779
- “revenais” frequency rank
- 68781
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | referais | revenais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du conditionnel de refaire. | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait du verbe revenir. |
Where the eye mixes referais and revenais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. referais and revenais follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses referais with revenais
A purely visual mix-up. referais (\ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\) and revenais (\ʁəv.nɛ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68781, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
referais is recorded at frequency rank #38,002, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fə.ʁɛ\. revenais is at rank #30,779, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁəv.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 68781, this pair ranks #57,734 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of referais vs revenais
Shared letters: aeirs. Private to "referais": f. Private to "revenais": nv.
"referais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC · "revenais" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "referais" for "revenais" ever safe?
Frequency check: "referais" vs "revenais" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "referais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "revenais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #57,734 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "referais" and "revenais" 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 #57,734 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.