Which to use
“race” is a noun and “rad” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #882
- “race” frequency rank
- #15,039
- “rad” frequency rank
- 15921
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | race | rad |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective. | Clipping of radical (“excellent”). |
Where the eye mixes race and rad
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: race is /ɹeɪs/ while rad is /ɹæd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
race is recorded at frequency rank #882, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹeɪs/. rad is at rank #15,039, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɹæd/.
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 15921, this pair ranks #461,001 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of race vs rad
Shared letters: ar. Private to "race": ce. Private to "rad": d.
"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "rad" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- race ← arce · racce · raec · rcae · rrace