Which to use
“ric” and “ricin” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,114
- “ric” frequency rank
- #40,967
- “ricin” frequency rank
- 66081
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ric | ricin |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variante de ricard. | Grande plante vivace arborescente de la famille des Euphorbiacées, à fleurs unisexuelles et sans corolle, extrêmement toxique, dont les semences fournissent une huile employée comme purgatif et comme lubrifiant. |
Where the eye mixes ric and ricin
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. ric runs 3 letters (CVC) against ricin's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: ric vs ricin
A purely visual mix-up. ric (\ʁik\) and ricin (\ʁi.sɛ̃\) 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) - “ric” sits inside “ricin”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ric is recorded at frequency rank #25,114, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁik\. ricin is at rank #40,967, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁi.sɛ̃\.
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 66081, this pair ranks #69,408 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ric vs ricin
Shared letters: cir. Private to "ric": -. Private to "ricin": n.
"ric" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "ricin" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- ricin ← ircin · rciin · riccin · ricinn · ricni · riicn · rricin
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ric" and "ricin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "ric" or "ricin" 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 "ric" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ricin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #69,408 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ric" and "ricin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ricin vs Rimini". 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 #69,408 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.