Which to use
“jo” and “jour” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,932
- “jo” frequency rank
- #141
- “jour” frequency rank
- 4073
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | jo | jour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | (Nivernais) Coq. | Période de vingt-quatre heures, commençant généralement à minuit ; en certains lieux et à certaines époques, le jour commençait plutôt avec le lever ou le coucher du soleil. |
Where the eye mixes jo and jour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses jo with jour
A purely visual mix-up. jo (\ʒɔ\) and jour (\ʒuʁ\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “jo” sits inside “jour”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4073, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
jo is recorded at frequency rank #3,932, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒɔ\. jour is at rank #141, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒuʁ\.
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 4073, this pair ranks #432,533 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of jo vs jour
Shared letters: jo. Private to "jo": -. Private to "jour": ru.
"jo" · 2 letters · shape CV · "jour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- jour ← jjour · joru · jourr · juor · ojur
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "jo" and "jour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "jo" vs "jour" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "jo" and "jour" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "jo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "jour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #432,533 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "jo" and "jour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jo vs jor". 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 #432,533 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.