Which to use
“roulis” and “rules” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,150
- “roulis” frequency rank
- #38,519
- “rules” frequency rank
- 82669
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | roulis | rules |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Balancement d’un navire qui roule, qui penche alternativement de droite à gauche et de gauche à droite. | Pluriel de rule. |
Where the eye mixes roulis and rules
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses roulis with rules
A purely visual mix-up. roulis (\ʁu.li\) 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 82669, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
roulis is recorded at frequency rank #44,150, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʁu.li\. 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 82669, this pair ranks #16,263 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of roulis vs rules
Shared letters: lrsu. Private to "roulis": io. Private to "rules": e.
"roulis" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "rules" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "roulis" and "rules" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "roulis" or "rules" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "roulis" and "rules" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "roulis" 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 #16,263 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "roulis" and "rules" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rotules vs roulis". 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 #16,263 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.