racléevsrayéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: raclée is a noun, rayée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“raclée” is a noun and “rayée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,546
“raclée” frequency rank
#34,275
“rayée” frequency rank
66821
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature raclée rayée
Definition Coups répétés portés à une personne ou à un animal. Féminin singulier de rayé.

Where the eye mixes raclée and rayée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. raclée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against rayée's 5 (CVVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
raclée
5 ch
rayée

Why the eye confuses raclée with rayée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: raclée is \ʁɑ.kle\ while rayée is \ʁɛ.je\. 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 66821, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

raclée is recorded at frequency rank #32,546, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɑ.kle\. rayée is at rank #34,275, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁɛ.je\.

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 66821, this pair ranks #66,099 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of raclée vs rayée

Shared letters: aeré. Private to "raclée": cl. Private to "rayée": y.

"raclée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "rayée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "raclée" and "rayée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "raclée" is a noun and "rayée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "raclée" or "rayée"?
"raclée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,546 in our French list, against #34,275 for "rayée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "raclée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rayée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #66,099 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "raclée" and "rayée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "râles vs rayée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #66,099 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