Which to use
“rakes” and “raves” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,329
- “rakes” frequency rank
- #35,906
- “raves” frequency rank
- 77235
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rakes | raves |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of rake | plural of rave |
Where the eye mixes rakes and raves
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. rakes and raves follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between rakes and raves
A purely visual mix-up. rakes (/ɹeɪks/) and raves (/ɹeɪvz/) 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 - k in “rakes” becomes v in “raves”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77235, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rakes is recorded at frequency rank #41,329, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹeɪks/. raves is at rank #35,906, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹeɪvz/.
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 77235, this pair ranks #27,809 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of rakes vs raves
Shared letters: aers. Private to "rakes": k. Private to "raves": v.
"rakes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "raves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "rakes" for "raves" ever safe?
Which is more common, "rakes" or "raves"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "rakes" and "raves" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "rakes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "raves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #27,809 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rakes" and "raves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "raves vs Revis". 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 #27,809 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.