refondervsrépondezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#44,682
“refonder” frequency rank
#10,575
“répondez” frequency rank
55257
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refonder répondez
Definition Donner de nouvelles fondations à une entreprise, un pays, une ville... Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de répondre.

Where the eye mixes refonder and répondez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. refonder and répondez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
refonder
8 ch
répondez

Visual trap between refonder and répondez

A purely visual mix-up. refonder (\ʁə.fɔ̃.de\) and répondez (\ʁe.pɔ̃.de\) 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 55257, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

refonder is recorded at frequency rank #44,682, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁə.fɔ̃.de\. répondez is at rank #10,575, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁe.pɔ̃.de\.

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 55257, this pair ranks #128,628 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of refonder vs répondez

Shared letters: denor. Private to "refonder": f. Private to "répondez": pzé.

"refonder" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC  ·  "répondez" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • refonder ← erfonder · reffonder · refnoder · refodner · refondder · refonderr · refondre · refonedr

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "refonder" and "répondez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁə.fɔ̃.de\ versus \ʁe.pɔ̃.de\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "refonder" or "répondez" show up more?
"répondez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,575 in our French list, against #44,682 for "refonder". 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 "refonder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "répondez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #128,628 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refonder" and "répondez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "refonder vs refouler". 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 #128,628 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