raison
\ʁɛ.zɔ̃\
The verdict
“raison” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #259 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #259
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Faculté intellectuelle par laquelle l’homme connaît, juge et se conduit ; entendement.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | raison |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʁɛ.zɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #259 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “raison” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for raison is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʁɛ.zɔ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #259 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for raison, with forms such as "arison", "raiosn", and "raisno". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 14 confusable-pair relationships, "rayon", "ramon", "raton", 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 to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is raison, spelled R-A-I-S-O-N.
Definition
- 1Faculté intellectuelle par laquelle l’homme connaît, juge et se conduit ; entendement.
- 2Ensemble de principes philosophiques de la connaissance ou de l'action
- 3Faculté de raisonner, d’établir des démonstrations, d’administrer des preuves.
- 4Le bon sens, le bon usage de la raison, la sagesse, la justesse d’esprit.
- 5Ce qui est de devoir, de droit, d’équité, de justice.
- 6Réparation d’un outrage, d’un affront.
- 7Preuve par discours, par argument.
- 8Sujet ; cause ; motif.
- 9Titres et prétentions qu’une personne peut avoir. On l’emploie principalement dans ces phrases :
- 10Dénomination d’une société par les noms des associés, énoncés de la manière prévue par l’acte d’association pour signer toutes les pièces commerciales.
- 11La part d’un associé dans le fonds d’une société de commerce.
- 12Différence ou quotient de deux termes consécutifs, dans une progression arithmétique ou géométrique.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: arison,raiosn,raisno,raisonn,raisson,rasion,riason,rraison
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of raison - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "raison"?
What does "raison" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "raison"?
How do you pronounce "raison"?
What language does "raison" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “raison”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is R-A-I-S-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ʁɛ.zɔ̃\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “rayon” - see the side-by-side comparison. raison vs rayon
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.