raclevsrâlesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#48,135
“racle” frequency rank
#48,774
“râles” frequency rank
96909
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature racle râles
Definition Outil servant à racler. Pluriel de râle.

Where the eye mixes racle and râles

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

5 ch
racle
5 ch
râles

Look-alike desk: racle vs râles

A purely visual mix-up. racle (\ʁakl\) and râles (\ʁɑl\) 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 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 96909, 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\. râles is at rank #48,774, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɑl\.

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 96909, this pair ranks #527 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of racle vs râles

Shared letters: elr. Private to "racle": ac. Private to "râles": sâ.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "racle" and "râles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁakl\ versus \ʁɑl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "racle" or "râles"?
"racle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48,135 in our French list, against #48,774 for "râles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "racle" and "râles" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "racle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "râles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #527 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "racle" and "râles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "râles vs rasées". 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 #527 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