rongevsroqueWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#22,404
“ronge” frequency rank
#30,785
“roque” frequency rank
53189
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ronge roque
Definition Il n’est usité que dans cette phrase : Mouvement du jeu d’échecs où le roi et une tour bougent en un seul coup : le roi va de 2 cases vers la tour et la tour saute le roi et se met sur la case juste à côté. Pour faire ce coup, il faut :

Where the eye mixes ronge and roque

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
ronge
5 ch
roque

Why the eye confuses ronge with roque

A purely visual mix-up. ronge (\ʁɔ̃ʒ\) and roque (\ʁɔk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53189, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ronge is recorded at frequency rank #22,404, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɔ̃ʒ\. roque is at rank #30,785, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɔk\.

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 53189, this pair ranks #142,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ronge vs roque

Shared letters: eor. Private to "ronge": gn. Private to "roque": qu.

"ronge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "roque" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rongeornge · rnoge · roneg · rongge · ronnge · rronge
  • roqueroqeu · roqque · rouqe · rqoue · rroque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ronge" for "roque" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɔ̃ʒ\ versus \ʁɔk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "ronge" or "roque" show up more?
"ronge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,404 in our French list, against #30,785 for "roque". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ronge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "roque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #142,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ronge" and "roque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "roque vs roques". 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 #142,480 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