roisvsroulisWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,283
“rois” frequency rank
#44,150
“roulis” frequency rank
48433
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rois roulis
Definition Pluriel de roi. Balancement d’un navire qui roule, qui penche alternativement de droite à gauche et de gauche à droite.

Where the eye mixes rois and roulis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
rois
6 ch
roulis

Look-alike desk: rois vs roulis

A purely visual mix-up. rois (\ʁwa\) and roulis (\ʁu.li\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48433, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rois is recorded at frequency rank #4,283, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁwa\. roulis is at rank #44,150, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁu.li\.

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 48433, this pair ranks #178,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rois vs roulis

Shared letters: iors. Private to "rois": -. Private to "roulis": lu.

"rois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "roulis" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roisoris · roiss · rosi · rrois
  • roulisorulis · roluis · rouils · rouliss · roullis · roulsi · rroulis · ruolis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rois" for "roulis" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁwa\ versus \ʁu.li\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "rois" or "roulis"?
"rois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,283 in our French list, against #44,150 for "roulis". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rois" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "roulis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rois" and "roulis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rotules vs roulis". 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 #178,977 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