rad

symbol

The verdict

“rad” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #28,705) as a symbol. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#28,705
frequency rank, French
5,742
“R” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Symbole du radian, unité de mesure d’angle plan du Système international (SI).

Corpus desk

Index FR-rad · rad · French

rad · rank #28,705 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #28,705
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,742
  • PHOTO-FINISH quiche

Nearest frequency peer: quiche (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « rad »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « rad » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

rad vs Re
0% similar
rad vs Rh
0% similar
rad vs RT
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for rad
PropertyValue
Headwordrad
LanguageFrench
Part of speechSymbol
Letters3
Frequency rank#28,705
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « rad »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).radse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « quiche » (#28,704), « radin » (#28,706), « quenelle » (#28,703). Parmi 5,742 lemmes en « R », « rad » est au #28,705. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for rad is neighbouring look-alikes ("Re", "Rh", …), not just typos; it is asymbol. Frequency #28,705 among 5,742 “R” headwords. Gloss: "Symbole du radian, unité de mesure d’angle plan du Système international (SI).".

rad has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Re", "Rh", "RT", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is rad, spelled R-A-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    Symbole du radian, unité de mesure d’angle plan du Système international (SI).

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how rad appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Une mesure de 2π rad correspond à 360°.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "rad"?
"rad" is spelled R-A-D.
What does "rad" mean?
As a symbol, "rad" means: Symbole du radian, unité de mesure d’angle plan du Système international (SI).
What words are commonly confused with "rad"?
"rad" is commonly confused with "Re", "Rh", "RT". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "rad" come from?
"rad" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "rad", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list