ratervsroyerConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#6,018
“rater” frequency rank
#30,787
“royer” frequency rank
36805
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rater royer
Definition Ne pas partir, en parlant d’une arme à feu. Aérer la terre en y creusant des sillons.

Where the eye mixes rater and royer

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

5 ch
rater
5 ch
royer

Visual trap between rater and royer

A purely visual mix-up. rater (\ʁa.te\) and royer (\ʁwa.je\) 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 36805, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rater is recorded at frequency rank #6,018, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁa.te\. royer is at rank #30,787, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁwa.je\.

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 36805, this pair ranks #267,003 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rater vs royer

Shared letters: er. Private to "rater": at. Private to "royer": oy.

"rater" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "royer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • raterarter · raetr · raterr · ratre · ratter · rrater · rtaer
  • royeroryer · roeyr · royerr · royre · royyer · rroyer · ryoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rater" for "royer" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁa.te\ versus \ʁwa.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "rater" vs "royer" - which ranks higher?
"rater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,018 in our French list, against #30,787 for "royer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rater" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "royer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #267,003 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rater" and "royer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "roya vs royer". 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 #267,003 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