ratévsroseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,217
“raté” frequency rank
#1,605
“rose” frequency rank
4822
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature raté rose
Definition Qui a raté, qui a échoué, qui n’a pas atteint son but. De la couleur du même nom, résultant d'un mélange en proportions diverses de rouge et de blanc.

Where the eye mixes raté and rose

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
raté
4 ch
rose

Visual trap between raté and rose

A purely visual mix-up. raté (\ʁa.te\) and rose (\ʁoz\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4822, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

raté is recorded at frequency rank #3,217, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁa.te\. rose is at rank #1,605, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁoz\.

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 4822, this pair ranks #430,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of raté vs rose

Shared letters: r. Private to "raté": até. Private to "rose": eos.

"raté" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "rose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roseorse · roes · rosse · rrose · rsoe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "raté" and "rose" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁa.te\ versus \ʁoz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "raté" or "rose"?
"rose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,605 in our French list, against #3,217 for "raté". 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 "raté" and "rose" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "raté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #430,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "raté" and "rose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "RAMQ vs raté". 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 #430,591 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