rôlevsRuneTell them apart

Quick tell: rôle is a noun, Rune is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rôle” is a noun and “Rune” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#606
“rôle” frequency rank
#47,011
“Rune” frequency rank
47617
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rôle Rune
Definition Rouleau de papier, de parchemin, sur lequel on écrivait des actes, des titres. Nom de famille.

Letter map: rôle vs Rune

Shared letters muted; letters that set rôle and Rune apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
rôle
4 ch
Rune

Grammar separator: rôle vs Rune

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: rôle is anoun and Runeaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47617, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rôle is recorded at frequency rank #606, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁol\. Rune is at rank #47,011, tagged as aname.

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 47617, this pair ranks #185,528 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of rôle vs Rune

Shared letters: er. Private to "rôle": . Private to "Rune": nu.

"rôle" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Rune" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Runernue · rrune · ruen · runne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rôle" and "Rune" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rôle" is a noun and "Rune" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "rôle" or "Rune" show up more?
"rôle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #606 in our French list, against #47,011 for "Rune". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "rôle" and "Rune". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rôle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Rune" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,528 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rôle" and "Rune" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rani vs Rune". 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 #185,528 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