Which to use
“rare” and “raté” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,785
- “rare” frequency rank
- #3,217
- “raté” frequency rank
- 5002
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rare | raté |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est en petit nombre ; qui se trouve difficilement. | Qui a raté, qui a échoué, qui n’a pas atteint son but. |
Where the eye mixes rare and raté
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses rare with raté
A purely visual mix-up. rare (\ʁaʁ\) and raté (\ʁa.te\) 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 5002, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rare is recorded at frequency rank #1,785, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁaʁ\. raté is at rank #3,217, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁa.te\.
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 5002, this pair ranks #430,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of rare vs raté
Shared letters: ar. Private to "rare": e. Private to "raté": té.
"rare" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "raté" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- rare ← arre · raer · rarre · rrae · rrare
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "rare" and "raté" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "rare" or "raté" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "rare" and "raté" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "rare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "raté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #430,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rare" and "raté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "RAMQ vs raté". 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 #430,158 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.