écroulervsenroulerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#23,079
“écrouler” frequency rank
#37,795
“enrouler” frequency rank
60874
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écrouler enrouler
Definition Tomber en s’affaissant. Rouler plusieurs fois une chose autour d’une autre, ou sur elle-même.

Where the eye mixes écrouler and enrouler

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. écrouler and enrouler follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
écrouler
8 ch
enrouler

Why the eye confuses écrouler with enrouler

A purely visual mix-up. écrouler (\e.kʁu.le\) and enrouler (\ɑ̃.ʁu.le\) 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 60874, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écrouler is recorded at frequency rank #23,079, classified as averb, pronounced \e.kʁu.le\. enrouler is at rank #37,795, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ʁu.le\.

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 60874, this pair ranks #95,331 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of écrouler vs enrouler

Shared letters: eloru. Private to "écrouler": . Private to "enrouler": n.

"écrouler" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC  ·  "enrouler" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • enroulerennrouler · enoruler · enroluer · enrouelr · enroulerr · enrouller · enroulre · enrrouler

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "écrouler" for "enrouler" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.kʁu.le\ versus \ɑ̃.ʁu.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "écrouler" vs "enrouler" - which ranks higher?
"écrouler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,079 in our French list, against #37,795 for "enrouler". 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 "écrouler" and "enrouler" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "écrouler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "enrouler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #95,331 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "écrouler" and "enrouler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enrôlés vs enrouler". 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 #95,331 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