rain

\ʁɛ̃\

/\ʁɛ̃\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“rain” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #23,329) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#23,329
frequency rank, French
5,742
“R” headwords
3
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lisière d’un bois, d’une forêt.

Corpus desk

Index FR-rain · rain · French

rain · rank #23,329 · 3 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #23,329
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 3 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,742
  • PHOTO-FINISH quad

Nearest frequency peer: quad (-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 « rain »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « rain » 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).

rain vs roi
50% similar
rain vs rio
50% similar
rain vs riz
50% similar

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

Key facts for rain
PropertyValue
Headwordrain
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʁɛ̃\
Letters4
Frequency rank#23,329
Misspellings tracked3
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « rain »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).rainse 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 « quad » (#23,328), « raisonné » (#23,330), « qqch » (#23,327). Parmi 5,742 lemmes en « R », « rain » est au #23,329. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for rain is neighbouring look-alikes ("roi", "rio", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ʁɛ̃\. Frequency #23,329 among 5,742 “R” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for rain, with forms such as "arin", "rainn", and "rrain". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "roi", "rio", "riz", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

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 rain, spelled R-A-I-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Lisière d’un bois, d’une forêt.
  2. 2
    Versant raide, généralement boisé.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Il est hors de doute qu’à l’époque gauloise, c’est là qu’était la limite entre les Senones et les Carnutes, limite d’ailleurs naturelle, formée par le rain oriental de la vaste forêt d’Orléans.
  2. Dans les textes officiels, le rain des Forêts correspond aux abords des forêts royales, distance fixée à deux lieues par une ordonnance de 1551. Selon l'acception locale, il s'agit d'un versant, du bord en pente d'un pré ou d'une forêt.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • arin
  • rainn
  • rrain

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of rain - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

arin2rainn1rrain1
Edit distance from "rain"

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 "rain"?
"rain" is spelled R-A-I-N. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁɛ̃\.
What does "rain" mean?
As a noun, "rain" means: Lisière d’un bois, d’une forêt.
What words are commonly confused with "rain"?
"rain" is commonly confused with "roi", "rio", "riz". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "rain"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "rain" is \ʁɛ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "rain" come from?
"rain" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "rain", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

quad#23,328qqch#23,327rama#23,331Rand#23,332

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list