légumevsligureTell them apart

Quick tell: légume is a noun, ligure is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“légume” is a noun and “ligure” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,474
“légume” frequency rank
#44,548
“ligure” frequency rank
62022
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature légume ligure
Definition Toute sorte d’herbes potagères, de plantes, de racines, de graines comestibles. Organisme végétal considéré en tant qu’aliment et utilisé principalement dans des plats salés (par opposition aux fruits) et en quantité substantielle (par opposition aux épices et aux herbes) ; on y inclus parfois les champignons comestibles. Relatif à la Ligurie ou sa culture.

Where the eye mixes légume and ligure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. légume and ligure follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
légume
6 ch
ligure

Why the eye confuses légume with ligure

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: légume is \le.ɡym\ while ligure is \li.ɡyʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62022, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

légume is recorded at frequency rank #17,474, classified as anoun, pronounced \le.ɡym\. ligure is at rank #44,548, tagged as anadj, pronounced \li.ɡyʁ\.

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 62022, this pair ranks #89,262 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of légume vs ligure

Shared letters: eglu. Private to "légume": mé. Private to "ligure": ir.

"légume" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "ligure" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ligure ← ilgure · lgiure · liggure · ligrue · liguer · ligurre · liugre · lligure

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "légume" and "ligure" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "légume" is a noun and "ligure" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "légume" vs "ligure" - which ranks higher?
"légume" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,474 in our French list, against #44,548 for "ligure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "légume" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ligure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #89,262 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "légume" and "ligure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ligure vs lure". 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 #89,262 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