racevsramsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,098
“race” frequency rank
#47,550
“rams” frequency rank
49648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature race rams
Definition Lignée ; ensemble des ascendants et des descendants d’une même famille. Jeu de cartes qui se joue à trois, quatre ou cinq joueurs, avec un jeu de trente-deux cartes, et qui consiste à se débarrasser le premier des cinq jetons donnés à chacun au départ en faisant cinq levées.

Where the eye mixes race and rams

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
race
4 ch
rams

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. race (\ʁas\) and rams (\ʁam\) 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 49648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

race is recorded at frequency rank #2,098, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁas\. rams is at rank #47,550, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁam\.

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 49648, this pair ranks #168,932 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of race vs rams

Shared letters: ar. Private to "race": ce. Private to "rams": ms.

"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "rams" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • racearce · racce · raec · rcae · rrace
  • ramsramms · ramss · rasm · rmas · rrams

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "race" and "rams" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁas\ versus \ʁam\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "race" or "rams"?
"race" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,098 in our French list, against #47,550 for "rams". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list