rays
\ʁɛ\
The verdict
“rays” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #38,501 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #38,501
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Pluriel de ray.
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 | rays |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʁɛ\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #38,501 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “rays” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for rays is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʁɛ\. Corpus data places it at rank #38,501 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Pluriel de ray.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for rays, with forms such as "arys", "rasy", and "rayss". 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, "Ry", "roy", "ris", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is rays, spelled R-A-Y-S.
Definition
- 1Pluriel de ray.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: arys,rasy,rayss,rayys,rrays,ryas
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of rays - 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
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Using “rays”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is R-A-Y-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ʁɛ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Ry” - see the side-by-side comparison. rays vs Ry
- 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.