lervsleurConfusable pair

Quick tell: ler is a noun, leur is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ler” is a noun and “leur” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,868
“ler” frequency rank
#72
“leur” frequency rank
41940
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ler leur
Definition Pin. Qui est à eux ou à elles.

Letter map: ler vs leur

Shared letters muted; letters that set ler and leur apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. ler runs 3 letters (CVC) against leur's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
ler
4 ch
leur

Role in the sentence - ler and leur

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ler is anoun and leuradeterminer. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41940, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ler is recorded at frequency rank #41,868, classified as anoun. leur is at rank #72, tagged as adet, pronounced \lœʁ\.

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 41940, this pair ranks #229,416 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ler vs leur

Shared letters: elr. Private to "ler": -. Private to "leur": u.

"ler" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "leur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leur ← elur · leru · leurr · lleur · luer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ler" for "leur" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ler" is a noun and "leur" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ler" or "leur"?
"leur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #72 in our French list, against #41,868 for "ler". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "ler" and "leur". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,416 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ler" and "leur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs ler". 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 #229,416 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