racevsRomeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,135
“race” frequency rank
#34,902
“Rome” frequency rank
47037
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature race Rome
Definition raça Roma

Where the eye mixes race and Rome

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. race and Rome follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
race
4 ch
Rome

Visual trap between race and Rome

A purely visual mix-up. race (/ɹeɪs/) and Rome (/ʁɔm/) 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 47037, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

race is recorded at frequency rank #12,135, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹeɪs/. Rome is at rank #34,902, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ʁɔm/.

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 47037, this pair ranks #18,249 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of race vs Rome

Shared letters: er. Private to "race": ac. Private to "Rome": mo.

"race" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Rome" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • race ← racce · raec · rcae · rrace
  • Rome ← orme · rmoe · roem · romme · rrome

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "race" and "Rome" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɹeɪs/ versus /ʁɔm/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "race" or "Rome"?
"race" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,135 in our Portuguese list, against #34,902 for "Rome". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "race" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Rome" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,249 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "race" and "Rome" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Rome vs ruma". 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 #18,249 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