raclevsrâlerTell them apart

Quick tell: racle is a noun, râler is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“racle” is a noun and “râler” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,135
“racle” frequency rank
#18,865
“râler” frequency rank
67000
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature racle râler
Definition Outil servant à racler. Faire entendre un râle, des râles en respirant.

Where the eye mixes racle and râler

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. racle (CVCCV) and râler (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
racle
5 ch
râler

Look-alike desk: racle vs râler

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: racle is \ʁakl\ while râler is \ʁa.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67000, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

racle is recorded at frequency rank #48,135, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁakl\. râler is at rank #18,865, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁa.le\.

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 67000, this pair ranks #65,360 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of racle vs râler

Shared letters: elr. Private to "racle": ac. Private to "râler": â.

"racle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "râler" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • racle ← arcle · raccle · racel · raclle · ralce · rcale · rracle

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "racle" for "râler" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "racle" is a noun and "râler" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "racle" or "râler"?
"râler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,865 in our French list, against #48,135 for "racle". 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 "racle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "râler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,360 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "racle" and "râler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "racle vs râles". 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 #65,360 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