Which to use
“refus” is a noun and “refusés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,164
- “refus” frequency rank
- #27,595
- “refusés” frequency rank
- 30759
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | refus | refusés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de ne pas accorder ce qui est demandé. | Masculin pluriel de refusé. |
Where the eye mixes refus and refusés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: refus is \ʁə.fy\ while refusés is \ʁə.fy.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “refus” sits inside “refusés”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30759, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
refus is recorded at frequency rank #3,164, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁə.fy\. refusés is at rank #27,595, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁə.fy.ze\.
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 30759, this pair ranks #308,176 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of refus vs refusés
Shared letters: efrsu. Private to "refus": -. Private to "refusés": é.
"refus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "refusés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- refus ← erfus · reffus · refsu · refuss · reufs · rfeus · rrefus