Which to use
“race” and “roe” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #882
- “race” frequency rank
- #16,334
- “roe” frequency rank
- 17216
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | race | roe |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A contest between people, animals, vehicles, etc. where the goal is to be the first to reach some objective. | Eggs of fish. |
Where the eye mixes race and roe
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. race (/ɹeɪs/) and roe (/ˈɹəʊ/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17216, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
race is recorded at frequency rank #882, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹeɪs/. roe is at rank #16,334, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɹəʊ/.
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 17216, this pair ranks #452,867 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of race vs roe
Shared letters: er. Private to "race": ac. Private to "roe": o.
"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "roe" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- race ← arce · racce · raec · rcae · rrace