roisvsroyaWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#4,283
“rois” frequency rank
#49,922
“roya” frequency rank
54205
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rois roya
Definition Pluriel de roi. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de royer.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set rois and roya apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
rois
4 ch
roya

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rois is \ʁwa\ while roya is \ʁwa.ja\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54205, 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\. 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 54205, this pair ranks #135,529 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rois vs roya

Shared letters: or. Private to "rois": is. Private to "roya": ay.

"rois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "roya" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roisoris · roiss · rosi · rrois
  • royaorya · roay · royya · rroya · ryoa

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "rois" and "roya" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rois" is a noun and "roya" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "rois" or "roya"?
"rois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,283 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list