jokevsjugeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#17,742
“joke” frequency rank
#1,065
“juge” frequency rank
18807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature joke juge
Definition Blague, farce. Magistrat investi par autorité publique du pouvoir de dire le droit ou reconnaître le fait et de la fonction d’appliquer la loi dans les affaires litigieuses.

Where the eye mixes joke and juge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
joke
4 ch
juge

Look-alike desk: joke vs juge

A purely visual mix-up. joke (\dʒok\) and juge (\ʒyʒ\) 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 18807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

joke is recorded at frequency rank #17,742, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʒok\. juge is at rank #1,065, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒyʒ\.

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 18807, this pair ranks #376,483 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of joke vs juge

Shared letters: ej. Private to "joke": ko. Private to "juge": gu.

"joke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "juge" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jokejjoke · jkoe · joek · jokke · ojke
  • jugejgue · jjuge · jueg · jugge · ujge

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "joke" and "juge" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\dʒok\ versus \ʒyʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "joke" or "juge" show up more?
"juge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,065 in our French list, against #17,742 for "joke". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "joke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "juge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #376,483 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "joke" and "juge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "joke 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 #376,483 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