Which to use
“rais” and “raison” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,509
- “rais” frequency rank
- #259
- “raison” frequency rank
- 37768
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rais | raison |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ancienne orthographe de rai, figurant au Dictionnaire de l'Académie française jusqu’en 1878. | Faculté intellectuelle par laquelle l’homme connaît, juge et se conduit ; entendement. |
Where the eye mixes rais and raison
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses rais with raison
A purely visual mix-up. rais (\ʁɛ\) and raison (\ʁɛ.zɔ̃\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “rais” sits inside “raison”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rais is recorded at frequency rank #37,509, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛ\. raison is at rank #259, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛ.zɔ̃\.
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 37768, this pair ranks #260,065 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of rais vs raison
Shared letters: airs. Private to "rais": -. Private to "raison": no.
"rais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "raison" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "rais" and "raison" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "rais" or "raison" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "rais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "raison" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #260,065 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rais" and "raison" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rais 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 #260,065 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.