rouléevsrulesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#35,701
“roulée” frequency rank
#38,519
“rules” frequency rank
74220
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature roulée rules
Definition Coups donnés à quelqu’un. Pluriel de rule.

Where the eye mixes roulée and rules

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. roulée runs 6 letters (CVVCVV) against rules's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
roulée
5 ch
rules

Look-alike desk: roulée vs rules

A purely visual mix-up. roulée (\ʁu.le\) and rules (\ˈɹulz\) 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 74220, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

roulée is recorded at frequency rank #35,701, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁu.le\. rules is at rank #38,519, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈɹulz\.

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 74220, this pair ranks #37,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of roulée vs rules

Shared letters: elru. Private to "roulée": oé. Private to "rules": s.

"roulée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "rules" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rules ← rlues · rrules · ruels · ruless · rulles · rulse · urles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "roulée" and "rules" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʁu.le\ versus \ˈɹulz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "roulée" or "rules"?
"roulée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,701 in our French list, against #38,519 for "rules". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "roulée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rules" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #37,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "roulée" and "rules" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "râles vs rules". 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 #37,841 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