racevsranchTell them apart

Which to use

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

#2,098
“race” frequency rank
#20,544
“ranch” frequency rank
22642
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature race ranch
Definition Lignée ; ensemble des ascendants et des descendants d’une même famille. Exploitation agricole aux États-Unis (ou ailleurs par analogie) spécialisée dans l’élevage de bétail.

Where the eye mixes race and ranch

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

4 ch
race
5 ch
ranch

Visual trap between race and ranch

A purely visual mix-up. race (\ʁas\) and ranch (\ʁɑ̃tʃ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22642, 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\. ranch is at rank #20,544, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɑ̃tʃ\.

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 22642, this pair ranks #356,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of race vs ranch

Shared letters: acr. Private to "race": e. Private to "ranch": hn.

"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "ranch" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • racearce · racce · raec · rcae · rrace
  • rancharnch · racnh · rancch · ranchh · ranhc · rannch · rnach · rranch

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "race" for "ranch" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁas\ versus \ʁɑ̃tʃ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "race" or "ranch" show up more?
"race" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,098 in our French list, against #20,544 for "ranch". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "race" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ranch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #356,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "race" and "ranch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ranch vs rani". 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 #356,882 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