roquevsrouWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,785
“roque” frequency rank
#48,169
“rou” frequency rank
78954
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature roque rou
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 : Synonyme de rohu (poisson).

Where the eye mixes roque and rou

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

5 ch
roque
3 ch
rou

Why the eye confuses roque with rou

A purely visual mix-up. roque (\ʁɔk\) and rou (\ʁu\) 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 78954, 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\. rou is at rank #48,169, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁu\.

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 78954, this pair ranks #24,435 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of roque vs rou

Shared letters: oru. Private to "roque": eq. Private to "rou": -.

"roque" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "rou" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roqueroqeu · roqque · rouqe · rqoue · rroque

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "roque" and "rou" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ʁɔk\ versus \ʁu\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "roque" or "rou" show up more?
"roque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,785 in our French list, against #48,169 for "rou". 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 "rou" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,435 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "roque" and "rou" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rou vs roya". 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 #24,435 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