dracvsdrayWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“drac” and “dray” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,472
“drac” frequency rank
#49,605
“dray” frequency rank
85077
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drac dray
Definition Esprit malin ou animal fabuleux maléfique. Charrette.

Where the eye mixes drac and dray

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
drac
4 ch
dray

Visual trap between drac and dray

A purely visual mix-up. drac (\dʁak\) and dray (\dɹeɪ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - c in “drac” becomes y in “dray”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85077, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drac is recorded at frequency rank #35,472, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁak\. dray is at rank #49,605, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɹeɪ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 85077, this pair ranks #11,913 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of drac vs dray

Shared letters: adr. Private to "drac": c. Private to "dray": y.

"drac" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "dray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dracdarc · ddrac · dracc · drca · drrac · rdac
  • draydary · ddray · drayy · drray · drya · rday

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "drac" and "dray" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\dʁak\ versus \dɹeɪ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "drac" vs "dray" - which ranks higher?
"drac" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,472 in our French list, against #49,605 for "dray". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drac" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #11,913 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drac" and "dray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DAF vs dray". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #11,913 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list