jarvsjobTell them apart

Which to use

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

#35,564
“jar” frequency rank
#3,145
“job” frequency rank
38709
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jar job
Definition Banc de gros graviers et de sable, amoncellements, pouvant remodeler le lit du fleuve d’une année sur l’autre, et utilisés pour l’empierrement des chaussées, la confection de béton. Petit emploi, petit boulot, souvent faiblement rémunéré et temporaire.

Where the eye mixes jar and job

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. jar and job follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
jar
3 ch
job

Look-alike desk: jar vs job

A purely visual mix-up. jar (\ʒaʁ\) and job (\dʒɔb\) 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 38709, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jar is recorded at frequency rank #35,564, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒaʁ\. job is at rank #3,145, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʒɔb\.

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 38709, this pair ranks #253,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of jar vs job

Shared letters: j. Private to "jar": ar. Private to "job": bo.

"jar" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "job" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "jar" for "job" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʒaʁ\ versus \dʒɔb\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "jar" or "job" show up more?
"job" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,145 in our French list, against #35,564 for "jar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "jar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "job" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #253,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jar" and "job" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jar vs jor". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #253,365 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