rôtirvsroyerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,346
“rôtir” frequency rank
#30,787
“royer” frequency rank
80133
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rôtir royer
Definition Faire cuire de la viande à un feu vif, de manière que le dessus soit croustillant et que l’intérieur reste tendre. Aérer la terre en y creusant des sillons.

Where the eye mixes rôtir and royer

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

5 ch
rôtir
5 ch
royer

Look-alike desk: rôtir vs royer

A purely visual mix-up. rôtir (\ʁo.tiʁ\) and royer (\ʁwa.je\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80133, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rôtir is recorded at frequency rank #49,346, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁo.tiʁ\. royer is at rank #30,787, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁwa.je\.

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 80133, this pair ranks #21,662 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of rôtir vs royer

Shared letters: r. Private to "rôtir": itô. Private to "royer": eoy.

"rôtir" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "royer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • royeroryer · roeyr · royerr · royre · royyer · rroyer · ryoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rôtir" and "royer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁo.tiʁ\ versus \ʁwa.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "rôtir" or "royer" show up more?
"royer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,787 in our French list, against #49,346 for "rôtir". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "rôtir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "royer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,662 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rôtir" and "royer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rotary vs rôtir". 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 #21,662 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