radevsRDSWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#18,297
“rade” frequency rank
#29,102
“RDS” frequency rank
47399
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rade RDS
Definition Entrée de mer, naturelle ou artificielle, à l’abri du vent, dans la terre, qui permet un bon mouillage des bateaux. Remboursement de la dette sociale.

Where the eye mixes rade and RDS

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
rade
3 ch
RDS

Visual trap between rade and RDS

A purely visual mix-up. rade (\ʁad\) and RDS (\ɛʁ.de.ɛs\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47399, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rade is recorded at frequency rank #18,297, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁad\. RDS is at rank #29,102, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛʁ.de.ɛs\.

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 47399, this pair ranks #187,288 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rade vs RDS

Shared letters: dr. Private to "rade": ae. Private to "RDS": s.

"rade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "RDS" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • radearde · radde · raed · rdae · rrade

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rade" for "RDS" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁad\ versus \ɛʁ.de.ɛs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "rade" or "RDS" show up more?
"rade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,297 in our French list, against #29,102 for "RDS". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "RDS" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #187,288 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rade" and "RDS" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "RDS vs Rhys". 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 #187,288 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