roquevsrueTell them apart

Which to use

“roque” and “rue” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#49,602
“roque” frequency rank
#13,801
“rue” frequency rank
63403
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature roque rue
Definition A form of croquet using short-handled mallets, and played on a hard surface. Sorrow; repentance; regret.

Where the eye mixes roque and rue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
roque
3 ch
rue

Visual trap between roque and rue

A purely visual mix-up. roque (/ɹoʊk/) and rue (/ɹuː/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63403, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

roque is recorded at frequency rank #49,602, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹoʊk/. rue is at rank #13,801, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹuː/.

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 63403, this pair ranks #83,187 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of roque vs rue

Shared letters: eru. Private to "roque": oq. Private to "rue": -.

"roque" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "rue" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roqueorque · roqeu · roqque · rouqe · rqoue · rroque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "roque" for "rue" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɹoʊk/ versus /ɹuː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "roque" or "rue"?
"rue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,801 in our English list, against #49,602 for "roque". 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 "roque" and "rue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "roque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #83,187 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "roque" and "rue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Rolfe vs roque". 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 #83,187 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list