radisvsrâlesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,099
“radis” frequency rank
#48,774
“râles” frequency rank
77873
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature radis râles
Definition Légume potager du genre Raphanus (famille des Brassicaceae), dont la racine est comestible. Pluriel de râle.

Where the eye mixes radis and râles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. radis and râles follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
radis
5 ch
râles

Why the eye confuses radis with râles

A purely visual mix-up. radis (\ʁa.di\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77873, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

radis is recorded at frequency rank #29,099, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁa.di\. 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 77873, this pair ranks #27,216 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of radis vs râles

Shared letters: rs. Private to "radis": adi. Private to "râles": elâ.

"radis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "râles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • radis ← ardis · raddis · radiss · radsi · rdais · rradis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "radis" and "râles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁa.di\ versus \ʁɑl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "radis" or "râles"?
"radis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,099 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "radis" 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 #27,216 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "radis" 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 #27,216 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