diurnesvsduréesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: diurnes is a adjective, durées is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“diurnes” is an adjective and “durées” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,290
“diurnes” frequency rank
#20,424
“durées” frequency rank
67714
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature diurnes durées
Definition Pluriel de diurne. Pluriel de durée.

Where the eye mixes diurnes and durées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. diurnes runs 7 letters (CVVCCVC) against durées's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
diurnes
6 ch
durées

Why the eye confuses diurnes with durées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: diurnes is \djyʁn\ while durées is \dy.ʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67714, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

diurnes is recorded at frequency rank #47,290, classified as anadj, pronounced \djyʁn\. durées is at rank #20,424, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dy.ʁe\.

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 67714, this pair ranks #62,198 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of diurnes vs durées

Shared letters: dersu. Private to "diurnes": in. Private to "durées": é.

"diurnes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "durées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • diurnesddiurnes · dirunes · diunres · diurens · diurness · diurnnes · diurnse · diurrnes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "diurnes" and "durées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "diurnes" is an adjective and "durées" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "diurnes" vs "durées" - which ranks higher?
"durées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,424 in our French list, against #47,290 for "diurnes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "diurnes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "durées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,198 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "diurnes" and "durées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diurne vs diurnes". 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 #62,198 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