jourvsjoursConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#141
“jour” frequency rank
#183
“jours” frequency rank
324
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jour jours
Definition 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. Pluriel de jour.

Same sound, different letters: jour vs jours

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

4 ch
jour
5 ch
jours

Same sound, different spelling - jour / jours

This is the hard kind. jour and jours are pronounced identically (\ʒuʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “jour” sits inside “jours”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 324, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jour is recorded at frequency rank #141, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒuʁ\. jours is at rank #183, 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 324, this pair ranks #439,812 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of jour vs jours

Shared letters: joru. Private to "jour": -. Private to "jours": s.

"jour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "jours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jourjjour · joru · jourr · juor · ojur
  • joursjjours · jorus · jourrs · jourss · jousr · juors · ojurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "jour" and "jours" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʒuʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "jour" or "jours"?
"jour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #141 in our French list, against #183 for "jours". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "jour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "jours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #439,812 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jour" and "jours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jor vs jours". 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 #439,812 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