raisvsregisWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: rais is a noun, regis is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rais” is a noun and “regis” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,509
“rais” frequency rank
#34,282
“regis” frequency rank
71791
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rais regis
Definition Ancienne orthographe de rai, figurant au Dictionnaire de l'Académie française jusqu’en 1878. Passé du verbe regi.

Where the eye mixes rais and regis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. rais runs 4 letters (CVVC) against regis's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
rais
5 ch
regis

Why the eye confuses rais with regis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rais is \ʁɛ\ while regis is \ˈre.ɡis\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71791, 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\. regis is at rank #34,282, tagged as averb, pronounced \ˈre.ɡis\.

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 71791, this pair ranks #46,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of rais vs regis

Shared letters: irs. Private to "rais": a. Private to "regis": eg.

"rais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "regis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rais ← raiss · rasi · rias · rrais
  • regis ← ergis · reggis · regiss · regsi · reigs · rgeis · rregis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rais" and "regis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rais" is a noun and "regis" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "rais" or "regis" show up more?
"regis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,282 in our French list, against #37,509 for "rais". 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 "rais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "regis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rais" and "regis" 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 #46,287 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