raçavsrapaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“raça” and “rapa” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,535
“raça” frequency rank
#42,635
“rapa” frequency rank
45170
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature raça rapa
Definition conjunto de indivíduos que conservam, entre si, caracteres somáticos semelhantes; estas características são transmitidas por hereditariedade grupo de pessoas, um coletivo de pessoas

Letter map: raça vs rapa

Shared letters muted; letters that set raça and rapa apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. raça and rapa follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
raça
4 ch
rapa

Corpus notes: raça and rapa

raça and rapa are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - ç in “raça” becomes p in “rapa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45170, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

raça is recorded at frequency rank #2,535, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈRa.sɐ/. rapa is at rank #42,635, tagged as anoun.

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 45170, this pair ranks #20,246 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of raça vs rapa

Shared letters: ar. Private to "raça": ç. Private to "rapa": p.

"raça" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "rapa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rapa ← arpa · raap · rappa · rpaa · rrapa

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "raça" and "rapa" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by a single letter - ç in “raça” becomes p in “rapa”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "raça" or "rapa" show up more?
"raça" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,535 in our Portuguese list, against #42,635 for "rapa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "raça" vs "rapa" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "raça" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rapa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,246 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "raça" and "rapa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rabi vs rapa". 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 #20,246 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list