radarsvsradiosWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,282
“radars” frequency rank
#8,138
“radios” frequency rank
19420
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature radars radios
Definition Pluriel de radar. Pluriel de radio.

Where the eye mixes radars and radios

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
radars
6 ch
radios

Look-alike desk: radars vs radios

A purely visual mix-up. radars (\ʁa.daʁ\) and radios (\ʁa.djo\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19420, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

radars is recorded at frequency rank #11,282, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁa.daʁ\. radios is at rank #8,138, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁa.djo\.

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 19420, this pair ranks #373,353 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of radars vs radios

Shared letters: adrs. Private to "radars": -. Private to "radios": io.

"radars" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "radios" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • radarsardars · raadrs · radarrs · radarss · radasr · raddars · radras · rdaars
  • radiosardios · raddios · radioss · radiso · radois · raidos · rdaios · rradios

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "radars" for "radios" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁa.daʁ\ versus \ʁa.djo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "radars" or "radios"?
"radios" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,138 in our French list, against #11,282 for "radars". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "radars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "radios" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #373,353 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "radars" and "radios" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "radial vs radios". 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 #373,353 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