Which to use
“leur” is a determiner and “leurres” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #72
- “leur” frequency rank
- #39,876
- “leurres” frequency rank
- 39948
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | leur | leurres |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est à eux ou à elles. | Pluriel de leurre. |
Same sound, different letters: leur vs leurres
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. leur runs 4 letters (CVVC) against leurres's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - leur and leurres
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: leur and leurres carry the same recorded pronunciation, \lœʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is adeterminer, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 3 extra letter(s) - “leur” sits inside “leurres”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39948, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
leur is recorded at frequency rank #72, classified as adet, pronounced \lœʁ\. leurres is at rank #39,876, tagged as anoun, 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 39948, this pair ranks #244,168 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of leur vs leurres
Shared letters: elru. Private to "leur": -. Private to "leurres": s.
"leur" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "leurres" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "leur" and "leurres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "leur" or "leurres" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "leur" / "leurres". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "leur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "leurres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #244,168 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "leur" and "leurres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leurres vs loutres". 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 #244,168 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.