Which to use
“race” is a noun and “ras” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,098
- “race” frequency rank
- #6,546
- “ras” frequency rank
- 8644
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | race | ras |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lignée ; ensemble des ascendants et des descendants d’une même famille. | Qui a le poil très court, coupé tout près de la peau, en parlant d’un être vivant. |
Where the eye mixes race and ras
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: race is \ʁas\ while ras is \ʁa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8644, 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\. ras is at rank #6,546, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁa\.
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 8644, this pair ranks #419,329 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of race vs ras
Shared letters: ar. Private to "race": ce. Private to "ras": s.
"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "ras" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- race ← arce · racce · raec · rcae · rrace