ruinévsRuizWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ruiné is a adjective, Ruiz is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ruiné” is an adjective and “Ruiz” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,469
“ruiné” frequency rank
#21,757
“Ruiz” frequency rank
35226
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ruiné Ruiz
Definition Qui a perdu sa fortune. Nom de famille espagnol.

Letter map: ruiné vs Ruiz

Shared letters muted; letters that set ruiné and Ruiz apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
ruiné
4 ch
Ruiz

Role in the sentence - ruiné and Ruiz

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ruiné is anadjective and Ruizaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35226, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ruiné is recorded at frequency rank #13,469, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁɥi.ne\. Ruiz is at rank #21,757, tagged as aname.

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 35226, this pair ranks #278,239 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ruiné vs Ruiz

Shared letters: iru. Private to "ruiné": . Private to "Ruiz": z.

"ruiné" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "Ruiz" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Ruizriuz · rruiz · ruizz · ruzi · uriz

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ruiné" for "Ruiz" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ruiné" is an adjective and "Ruiz" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ruiné" vs "Ruiz" - which ranks higher?
"ruiné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,469 in our French list, against #21,757 for "Ruiz". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ruiné" and "Ruiz".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ruiné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ruiz" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #278,239 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ruiné" and "Ruiz" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Reis vs Ruiz". 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 #278,239 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