tourvsturWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“tour” and “tur” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,112
“tour” frequency rank
#39,138
“tur” frequency rank
40250
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tour tur
Definition A journey through a particular building, estate, country, etc. Either of two species of wild goat native to Caucasus, West Caucasian tur Capra caucasica or East Caucasian tur Capra cylindricornis.

Where the eye mixes tour and tur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
tour
3 ch
tur

Look-alike desk: tour vs tur

A purely visual mix-up. tour (/tɔː(ɹ)/) and tur (/tʊə/) 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 40250, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tour is recorded at frequency rank #1,112, classified as anoun, pronounced /tɔː(ɹ)/. tur is at rank #39,138, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tʊə/.

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 40250, this pair ranks #269,265 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tour vs tur

Shared letters: rtu. Private to "tour": o. Private to "tur": -.

"tour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tourotur · toru · tourr · ttour · tuor

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tour" and "tur" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/tɔː(ɹ)/ versus /tʊə/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "tour" or "tur" show up more?
"tour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,112 in our English list, against #39,138 for "tur". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #269,265 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tour" and "tur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tuft vs tur". 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 #269,265 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