redvsreitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#480
“red” frequency rank
#45,043
“reit” frequency rank
45523
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature red reit
Definition The colour of the setting sun, blood, and strawberries; the colour which is evoked by the longest visible wavelengths (between about 625–740 nm), and a primary additive colour. sedge; seaweed

Where the eye mixes red and reit

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

3 ch
red
4 ch
reit

Look-alike desk: red vs reit

A purely visual mix-up. red (/ɹɛd/) and reit (/ɹiːt/) 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 45523, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

red is recorded at frequency rank #480, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹɛd/. reit is at rank #45,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹiːt/.

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 45523, this pair ranks #220,503 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of red vs reit

Shared letters: er. Private to "red": d. Private to "reit": it.

"red" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "reit" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • reiterit · reitt · reti · rreit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "red" for "reit" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɹɛd/ versus /ɹiːt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "red" or "reit" show up more?
"red" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #480 in our English list, against #45,043 for "reit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "red" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #220,503 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "red" and "reit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reit 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 #220,503 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list