ogrevsoursTell them apart

Quick tell: ogre is a noun, ours is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ogre” is a noun and “ours” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,506
“ogre” frequency rank
#5,527
“ours” frequency rank
31033
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ogre ours
Definition A type of brutish giant from folk tales that eats human flesh. That or those belonging to us.

Where the eye mixes ogre and ours

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
ogre
4 ch
ours

Why the eye confuses ogre with ours

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ogre is /ˈəʊ.ɡə/ while ours is /ˈaʊəz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31033, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ogre is recorded at frequency rank #25,506, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈəʊ.ɡə/. ours is at rank #5,527, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈaʊəz/.

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 31033, this pair ranks #349,602 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ogre vs ours

Shared letters: or. Private to "ogre": eg. Private to "ours": su.

"ogre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "ours" · 4 letters · shape VVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ogreoger · oggre · ogrre · orge
  • oursorus · ourrs · ourss · ousr · uors

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ogre" and "ours" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ogre" is a noun and "ours" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ogre" or "ours"?
"ours" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,527 in our English list, against #25,506 for "ogre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ogre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #349,602 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ogre" and "ours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ogre vs Ors". 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 #349,602 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list