refilévsrelireConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#35,239
“refilé” frequency rank
#9,731
“relire” frequency rank
44970
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refilé relire
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de refiler. Lire de nouveau.

Where the eye mixes refilé and relire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. refilé and relire follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
refilé
6 ch
relire

Why the eye confuses refilé with relire

A purely visual mix-up. refilé (\ʁə.fi.le\) and relire (\ʁə.liʁ\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

refilé is recorded at frequency rank #35,239, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fi.le\. relire is at rank #9,731, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁə.liʁ\.

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 44970, this pair ranks #206,412 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of refilé vs relire

Shared letters: eilr. Private to "refilé": fé. Private to "relire": -.

"refilé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "relire" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • relire ← erlire · reilre · relirre · rellire · relrie · rleire · rrelire

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "refilé" and "relire" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.fi.le\ versus \ʁə.liʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "refilé" vs "relire" - which ranks higher?
"relire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,731 in our French list, against #35,239 for "refilé". 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 "refilé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "relire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #206,412 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refilé" and "relire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recife vs refilé". 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 #206,412 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