ravagevsrodageWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#25,467
“ravage” frequency rank
#48,768
“rodage” frequency rank
74235
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ravage rodage
Definition Action de ravager. Action de roder.

Where the eye mixes ravage and rodage

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. ravage and rodage follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
ravage
6 ch
rodage

Look-alike desk: ravage vs rodage

A purely visual mix-up. ravage (\ʁa.vaʒ\) and rodage (\ʁɔ.daʒ\) 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 74235, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ravage is recorded at frequency rank #25,467, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁa.vaʒ\. rodage is at rank #48,768, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɔ.daʒ\.

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 74235, this pair ranks #37,781 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ravage vs rodage

Shared letters: aegr. Private to "ravage": v. Private to "rodage": do.

"ravage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "rodage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ravage ← arvage · raavge · ravaeg · ravagge · ravgae · ravvage · rravage · rvaage
  • rodage ← ordage · rdoage · roadge · rodaeg · rodagge · roddage · rodgae · rrodage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ravage" for "rodage" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁa.vaʒ\ versus \ʁɔ.daʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "ravage" vs "rodage" - which ranks higher?
"ravage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,467 in our French list, against #48,768 for "rodage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ravage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rodage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,781 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ravage" and "rodage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rodage vs routage". 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 #37,781 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