rapevsriceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“rape” and “rice” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,127
“rape” frequency rank
#2,758
“rice” frequency rank
5885
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rape rice
Definition The act of forcing sex upon another person without their consent or against their will; originally coitus forced by a man on a woman, but now generally any sex act forced by any person upon another person, regardless of gender; by extension, any non-consensual sex act forced on, perpetrated by, or forced to penetrate any being. Cereal plants, Oryza sativa of the grass family whose seeds are used as food.

Where the eye mixes rape and rice

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
rape
4 ch
rice

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. rape (/ˈɹeɪ̯p/) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5885, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rape is recorded at frequency rank #3,127, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɹeɪ̯p/. 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 5885, this pair ranks #513,631 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of rape vs rice

Shared letters: er. Private to "rape": ap. Private to "rice": ci.

"rape" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "rice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rapearpe · raep · rappe · rpae · rrape
  • riceirce · rcie · ricce · riec · rrice

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "rape" and "rice" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈɹeɪ̯p/ versus /ɹaɪs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "rape" or "rice"?
"rice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,758 in our English list, against #3,127 for "rape". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list