joyvsjuryTell them apart

Which to use

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

#15,919
“joy” frequency rank
#3,146
“jury” frequency rank
19065
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature joy jury
Definition Joie, allégresse. Tous les jurés désignés pour une session, ou seulement des douze jurés auxquels une affaire est soumise.

Where the eye mixes joy and jury

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

3 ch
joy
4 ch
jury

Visual trap between joy and jury

A purely visual mix-up. joy (\ˈdʒɔɪ\) and jury (\ʒy.ʁi\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19065, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

joy is recorded at frequency rank #15,919, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdʒɔɪ\. jury is at rank #3,146, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒy.ʁi\.

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 19065, this pair ranks #375,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of joy vs jury

Shared letters: jy. Private to "joy": o. Private to "jury": ru.

"joy" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "jury" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • juryjjury · jruy · jurry · juryy · juyr · ujry

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "joy" for "jury" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdʒɔɪ\ versus \ʒy.ʁi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "joy" or "jury"?
"jury" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,146 in our French list, against #15,919 for "joy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "joy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "jury" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #375,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "joy" and "jury" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jor vs joy". 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 #375,221 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