roulettevsroulettesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#19,974
“roulette” frequency rank
#21,450
“roulettes” frequency rank
41424
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature roulette roulettes
Definition Petite roue de bois, de fer, de cuivre, etc., servant à faire rouler les objets auxquels elle est attachée. Pluriel de roulette.

Same sound, different letters: roulette vs roulettes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. roulette runs 8 letters (CVVCVCCV) against roulettes's 9 (CVVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
roulette
9 ch
roulettes

Ear matches; page differs - roulette and roulettes

This is the hard kind. roulette and roulettes are pronounced identically (\ʁu.lɛt\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “roulette” sits inside “roulettes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41424, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

roulette is recorded at frequency rank #19,974, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁu.lɛt\. roulettes is at rank #21,450, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁu.lɛt\.

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 41424, this pair ranks #233,212 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of roulette vs roulettes

Shared letters: elortu. Private to "roulette": -. Private to "roulettes": s.

"roulette" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCCV  ·  "roulettes" · 9 letters · shape CVVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roulette ← orulette · roluette · roueltte · roulete · rouletet · roullette · roultete · rroulette
  • roulettes ← orulettes · roluettes · rouelttes · rouletes · rouletets · roulettess · roulettse · roullettes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "roulette" and "roulettes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʁu.lɛt\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "roulette" vs "roulettes" - which ranks higher?
"roulette" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,974 in our French list, against #21,450 for "roulettes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"roulette" and "roulettes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "roulette" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "roulettes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #233,212 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "roulette" and "roulettes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "roulette vs rouverte". 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 #233,212 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