lésésvsleursWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lésés is a verb, leurs is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lésés” is a verb and “leurs” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,943
“lésés” frequency rank
#126
“leurs” frequency rank
37069
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lésés leurs
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel de léser. Troisième personne du pluriel. Qui sont à eux. Plusieurs possesseurs et plusieurs objets.

Where the eye mixes lésés and leurs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lésés (CVCVC) and leurs (CVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
lésés
5 ch
leurs

Look-alike desk: lésés vs leurs

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lésés is \le.ze\ while leurs is \lœʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37069, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lésés is recorded at frequency rank #36,943, classified as averb, pronounced \le.ze\. leurs is at rank #126, 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 37069, this pair ranks #265,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lésés vs leurs

Shared letters: ls. Private to "lésés": é. Private to "leurs": eru.

"lésés" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "leurs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leurs ← elurs · lerus · leurrs · leurss · leusr · lleurs · luers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lésés" for "leurs" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lésés" is a verb and "leurs" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lésés" vs "leurs" - which ranks higher?
"leurs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #126 in our French list, against #36,943 for "lésés". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lésés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leurs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #265,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lésés" and "leurs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lésés vs leste". 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 #265,110 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