heurvsheurtConfusable pair

Which to use

“heur” and “heurt” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,538
“heur” frequency rank
#48,578
“heurt” frequency rank
84116
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heur heurt
Definition Bonne fortune, chance heureuse. Coup donné en heurtant contre quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes heur and heurt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. heur runs 4 letters (CVVC) against heurt's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
heur
5 ch
heurt

Why the eye confuses heur with heurt

A purely visual mix-up. heur (^((h muet))\œʁ\) and heurt (^((h aspiré))\œʁ\) 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 extra letter(s) - “heur” sits inside “heurt”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84116, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heur is recorded at frequency rank #35,538, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h muet))\œʁ\. heurt is at rank #48,578, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\œʁ\.

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 84116, this pair ranks #13,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of heur vs heurt

Shared letters: ehru. Private to "heur": -. Private to "heurt": t.

"heur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "heurt" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heur ← ehur · heru · heurr · hheur
  • heurt ← ehurt · herut · heurrt · heurtt · heutr · hheurt · huert

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "heur" for "heurt" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (^((h muet))\œʁ\ versus ^((h aspiré))\œʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "heur" or "heurt"?
"heur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,538 in our French list, against #48,578 for "heurt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "heur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heurt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heur" and "heurt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt vs hurt". 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 #13,539 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