Which to use
“racy” is an adjective and “rath” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,304
- “racy” frequency rank
- #40,411
- “rath” frequency rank
- 76715
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | racy | rath |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mildly risqué. | A walled enclosure, especially in Ireland; a ringfort built sometime between the Iron Age and the Viking Age. |
Where the eye mixes racy and rath
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. racy (CVCV) and rath (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: racy vs rath
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: racy is /ˈɹeɪsi/ while rath is /ɹɑːθ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76715, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
racy is recorded at frequency rank #36,304, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɹeɪsi/. rath is at rank #40,411, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹɑːθ/.
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 76715, this pair ranks #29,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of racy vs rath
Shared letters: ar. Private to "racy": cy. Private to "rath": ht.
"racy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "rath" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "racy" for "rath" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "racy" or "rath" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "racy" and "rath" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "racy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "rath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #29,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "racy" and "rath" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Rapp vs rath". 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 #29,322 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.