Which to use
“race” and “rice” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #882
- “race” frequency rank
- #2,758
- “rice” frequency rank
- 3640
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | race | rice |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective. | Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food. |
Where the eye mixes race and rice
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. race (/ɹeɪs/) and rice (/ɹaɪs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “race” becomes i in “rice”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3640, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
race is recorded at frequency rank #882, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹeɪs/. rice is at rank #2,758, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹaɪs/.
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 3640, this pair ranks #521,474 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of race vs rice
Shared letters: cer. Private to "race": a. Private to "rice": i.
"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "rice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV