Which to use
“encourir” and “encourus” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #49,062
- “encourir” frequency rank
- #35,495
- “encourus” frequency rank
- 84557
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | encourir | encourus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Attirer sur soi, faciliter la survenue, la réalisation, d'un châtiment, d'une peine venant d’une autorité supérieure, d'une pénalité, d'un jugement moral. Le sens de ce verbe contient une connotation de probabilité mais non de certitude : l'objet encouru n'est pas systématiquement réalisé (une peine encourue n'est pas systématiquement appliquée). | Participe passé masculin pluriel du verbe encourir. |
Where the eye mixes encourir and encourus
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. encourir and encourus follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between encourir and encourus
A purely visual mix-up. encourir (\ɑ̃.ku.ʁiʁ\) and encourus (\ɑ̃.ku.ʁy\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84557, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
encourir is recorded at frequency rank #49,062, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ku.ʁiʁ\. encourus is at rank #35,495, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ku.ʁy\.
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 84557, this pair ranks #12,775 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of encourir vs encourus
Shared letters: cenoru. Private to "encourir": i. Private to "encourus": s.
"encourir" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC · "encourus" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "encourir" and "encourus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "encourir" or "encourus" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "encourir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "encourus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #12,775 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "encourir" and "encourus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encourir vs encourue". 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 #12,775 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.