Which to use
“rough” and “roulé” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,518
- “rough” frequency rank
- #11,478
- “roulé” frequency rank
- 49996
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rough | roulé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bordure non entretenue d’un terrain de golf. | Gâteau consistant en une abaisse et une garniture enroulées sur elles-mêmes. |
Where the eye mixes rough and roulé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: rough vs roulé
A purely visual mix-up. rough (\ʁœf\) and roulé (\ʁu.le\) 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 49996, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rough is recorded at frequency rank #38,518, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁœf\. roulé is at rank #11,478, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁu.le\.
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 49996, this pair ranks #166,122 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of rough vs roulé
Shared letters: oru. Private to "rough": gh. Private to "roulé": lé.
"rough" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "roulé" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- rough ← orugh · roguh · rouggh · roughh · rouhg · rrough · ruogh
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "rough" and "roulé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "rough" or "roulé" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "rough" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "roulé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #166,122 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rough" and "roulé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rog vs rough". 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 #166,122 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.