Which to use
“drain” and “drake” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,222
- “drain” frequency rank
- #12,768
- “drake” frequency rank
- 45990
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drain | drake |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Une des trois électrodes d’un transistor à effet de champ (les deux autres sont appelées source et grille). Il joue un rôle analogue à l’anode dans les tubes à vide, ou le collecteur dans les transistors bipolaires. | Canard mâle, malard. |
Where the eye mixes drain and drake
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. drain (CCVVC) and drake (CCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: drain vs drake
A purely visual mix-up. drain (\dʁɛ̃\) and drake ([dɹeɪk]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drain is recorded at frequency rank #33,222, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁɛ̃\. drake is at rank #12,768, tagged as anoun, pronounced [dɹeɪk].
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 45990, this pair ranks #198,500 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of drain vs drake
Shared letters: adr. Private to "drain": in. Private to "drake": ek.
"drain" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "drake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "drain" and "drake" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "drain" vs "drake" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "drain" and "drake" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "drain" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drake" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #198,500 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drain" and "drake" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drain 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 #198,500 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.