rat

\ʁa\

/\ʁa\/ noun

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

The verdict

“rat” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,021) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#8,021
frequency rank, French
5,742
“R” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Rongeur à museau pointu, à pattes courtes et à queue longue, qui ronge et mange les grains, la paille, etc.

Corpus desk

Index FR-rat · rat · French

rat · rank #8,021 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #8,021
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,742
  • PHOTO-FINISH rappelant

Nearest frequency peer: rappelant (-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 « rat »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « rat » 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).

rat vs Re
0% similar
rat vs Rh
0% similar
rat vs RT
0% similar

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

Key facts for rat
PropertyValue
Headwordrat
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʁa\
Letters3
Frequency rank#8,021
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « rat »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).ratse 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 « rappelant » (#8,020), « rats » (#8,022), « pénétrer » (#8,019). Parmi 5,742 lemmes en « R », « rat » est au #8,021. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for rat is neighbouring look-alikes ("Re", "Rh", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ʁa\. Frequency #8,021 among 5,742 “R” headwords. 7 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No generated misspelling entries exist for rat in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Re", "Rh", "RT", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is rat, spelled R-A-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Rongeur à museau pointu, à pattes courtes et à queue longue, qui ronge et mange les grains, la paille, etc.
  2. 2
    Rat de cave ; agent des services fiscaux.
  3. 3
    Élève de l'école de danse de l'Opéra de Paris.
  4. 4
    Individu radin.
  5. 5
    Malfaçon ou défaut d’une serrure dont le ressort ne joue pas.
  6. 6
    Racaille.
  7. 7
    Petit hématome, épanchement sanguin sous-cutané ou sous unguéal, consécutif à un choc ou un pincement.  ^([4])

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Quand j’atteignais un rat d’un bon coup de fouet, le ronge-maille sifflait avec fureur, hérissait tous ses poils et s’élançait avec désespoir contre le fouet lui-même, instrument de sa torture.
  2. Les vices et les passions dans l’art chrétien sont, comme le diable, symbolisés par des animaux. Pris en général, ils sont figurés par des rats, parce qu’ils dévorent l’âme et rongent celui qui leur donne asile en son cœur, comme l’animal ronge-maille dévore et détruit tout ce qu’il touche.

Synonyms

gaspardronge-maille

This word in other languages

rat(English)rata(Español)Ratte(Deutsch)ratazana(Português)

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 "rat"?
"rat" is spelled R-A-T. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁa\.
What does "rat" mean?
As a noun, "rat" means: Rongeur à museau pointu, à pattes courtes et à queue longue, qui ronge et mange les grains, la paille, etc.
What words are commonly confused with "rat"?
"rat" is commonly confused with "Re", "Rh", "RT". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "rat"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "rat" is \ʁa\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "rat" come from?
"rat" 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 "rat", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

nba#7,997TGV#8,046cia#7,940lin#8,118

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list