roivsroyaTell them apart

Quick tell: roi is a noun, roya is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“roi” is a noun and “roya” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#547
“roi” frequency rank
#49,922
“roya” frequency rank
50469
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature roi roya
Definition Titre porté par celui qui règne sur un peuple, un État, en particulier un État monarchique, et qui tient sa fonction de l’hérédité ou de l’élection ; celui qui est à la tête d’un royaume. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de royer.

Where the eye mixes roi and roya

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

3 ch
roi
4 ch
roya

Look-alike desk: roi vs roya

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: roi is \ʁwa\ while roya is \ʁwa.ja\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50469, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

roi is recorded at frequency rank #547, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁwa\. roya is at rank #49,922, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁwa.ja\.

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 50469, this pair ranks #162,373 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of roi vs roya

Shared letters: or. Private to "roi": i. Private to "roya": ay.

"roi" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "roya" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • royaorya · roay · royya · rroya · ryoa

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "roi" and "roya" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "roi" is a noun and "roya" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "roi" vs "roya" - which ranks higher?
"roi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #547 in our French list, against #49,922 for "roya". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "roi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "roya" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #162,373 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "roi" and "roya" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Rhys vs roya". 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 #162,373 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