refusvsRufusWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: refus is a noun, Rufus is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“refus” is a noun and “Rufus” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,164
“refus” frequency rank
#27,608
“Rufus” frequency rank
30772
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature refus Rufus
Definition Action de ne pas accorder ce qui est demandé. Prénom masculin.

Letter map: refus vs Rufus

Shared letters muted; letters that set refus and Rufus apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
refus
5 ch
Rufus

Role in the sentence - refus and Rufus

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: refus is anoun and Rufusaname. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “refus” becomes u in “Rufus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30772, 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\. Rufus is at rank #27,608, tagged as aname.

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 30772, this pair ranks #308,096 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of refus vs Rufus

Shared letters: frsu. Private to "refus": e. Private to "Rufus": -.

"refus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Rufus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • refuserfus · reffus · refsu · refuss · reufs · rfeus · rrefus
  • Rufusrfuus · rrufus · ruffus · rufsu · rufuss · ruufs · urfus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "refus" and "Rufus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "refus" is a noun and "Rufus" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "refus" or "Rufus" show up more?
"refus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,164 in our French list, against #27,608 for "Rufus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "refus" vs "Rufus" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "refus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Rufus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #308,096 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "refus" and "Rufus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "riffs vs Rufus". 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 #308,096 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