roquevsrotuleTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,785
“roque” frequency rank
#39,517
“rotule” frequency rank
70302
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature roque rotule
Definition 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 : Petit os plat, triangulaire, à angles arrondis, placé en avant du genou, à l’endroit où le fémur s’articule avec le tibia.

Where the eye mixes roque and rotule

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

5 ch
roque
6 ch
rotule

Why the eye confuses roque with rotule

A purely visual mix-up. roque (\ʁɔk\) and rotule (\ʁɔ.tyl\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70302, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

roque is recorded at frequency rank #30,785, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁɔk\. rotule is at rank #39,517, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁɔ.tyl\.

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 70302, this pair ranks #51,851 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of roque vs rotule

Shared letters: eoru. Private to "roque": q. Private to "rotule": lt.

"roque" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "rotule" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roqueroqeu · roqque · rouqe · rqoue · rroque
  • rotuleortule · rotlue · rottule · rotuel · rotulle · routle · rrotule · rtoule

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "roque" for "rotule" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɔk\ versus \ʁɔ.tyl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "roque" vs "rotule" - which ranks higher?
"roque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,785 in our French list, against #39,517 for "rotule". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "roque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rotule" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,851 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "roque" and "rotule" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rotule vs rouble". 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 #51,851 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