rotvsrouéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: rot is a noun, roué is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rot” is a noun and “roué” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,730
“rot” frequency rank
#46,421
“roué” frequency rank
81151
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rot roué
Definition Émission par la bouche, et avec bruit, de gaz stomacaux. Qualifie le bois du cerf, lorsqu’il est serré et peu ouvert.

Where the eye mixes rot and roué

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
rot
4 ch
roué

Why the eye confuses rot with roué

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rot is \ʁo\ while roué is \ʁwe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81151, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rot is recorded at frequency rank #34,730, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁo\. roué is at rank #46,421, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁwe\.

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 81151, this pair ranks #19,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of rot vs roué

Shared letters: or. Private to "rot": t. Private to "roué": .

"rot" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "roué" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rot" for "roué" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rot" is a noun and "roué" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "rot" or "roué"?
"rot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,730 in our French list, against #46,421 for "roué". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "rot" and "roué" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rot" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "roué" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rot" and "roué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "roué vs roya". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #19,380 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