raysvsrazWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#38,501
“rays” frequency rank
#21,750
“raz” frequency rank
60251
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rays raz
Definition Pluriel de ray. Courant marin violent qui se fait sentir dans un détroit, dans un canal entre deux terres rapprochées.

Where the eye mixes rays and raz

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
rays
3 ch
raz

Visual trap between rays and raz

A purely visual mix-up. rays (\ʁɛ\) and raz (\ʁa\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60251, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rays is recorded at frequency rank #38,501, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɛ\. raz is at rank #21,750, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁa\.

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 60251, this pair ranks #98,637 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of rays vs raz

Shared letters: ar. Private to "rays": sy. Private to "raz": z.

"rays" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "raz" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • raysarys · rasy · rayss · rayys · rrays · ryas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rays" and "raz" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɛ\ versus \ʁa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "rays" or "raz"?
"raz" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,750 in our French list, against #38,501 for "rays". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rays" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "raz" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,637 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rays" and "raz" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rays vs roya". 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 #98,637 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