rayévsroyerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: rayé is a adjective, royer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rayé” is an adjective and “royer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,981
“rayé” frequency rank
#30,787
“royer” frequency rank
47768
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rayé royer
Definition Qui a des raies. Aérer la terre en y creusant des sillons.

Where the eye mixes rayé and royer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
rayé
5 ch
royer

Why the eye confuses rayé with royer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rayé is \ʁɛ.je\ while royer is \ʁwa.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rayé is recorded at frequency rank #16,981, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁɛ.je\. 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 47768, this pair ranks #184,295 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rayé vs royer

Shared letters: ry. Private to "rayé": . Private to "royer": eo.

"rayé" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "royer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • royeroryer · roeyr · royerr · royre · royyer · rroyer · ryoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rayé" and "royer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rayé" is an adjective and "royer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "rayé" or "royer"?
"rayé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,981 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 "rayé" and "royer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rayé" 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 #184,295 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rayé" 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 #184,295 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