rayéevsrayureTell them apart

Quick tell: rayée is a adjective, rayure is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rayée” is an adjective and “rayure” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,275
“rayée” frequency rank
#46,397
“rayure” frequency rank
80672
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rayée rayure
Definition Féminin singulier de rayé. Entaille, trace, éraflure faite sur une surface polie par un objet contondant.

Where the eye mixes rayée and rayure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. rayée runs 5 letters (CVVVV) against rayure's 6 (CVVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
rayée
6 ch
rayure

Visual trap between rayée and rayure

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rayée is \ʁɛ.je\ while rayure is \ʁe.jyʁ\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80672, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rayée is recorded at frequency rank #34,275, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁɛ.je\. rayure is at rank #46,397, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁe.jyʁ\.

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 80672, this pair ranks #20,417 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of rayée vs rayure

Shared letters: aery. Private to "rayée": é. Private to "rayure": u.

"rayée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV  ·  "rayure" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rayure ← aryure · rauyre · rayrue · rayuer · rayurre · rayyure · rrayure · ryaure

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rayée" for "rayure" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rayée" is an adjective and "rayure" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "rayée" vs "rayure" - which ranks higher?
"rayée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,275 in our French list, against #46,397 for "rayure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rayée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rayure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,417 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rayée" and "rayure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "raclure vs rayure". 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 #20,417 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