Which to use
“leurs” is a determiner and “lourds” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #126
- “leurs” frequency rank
- #5,673
- “lourds” frequency rank
- 5799
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | leurs | lourds |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel. Qui sont à eux. Plusieurs possesseurs et plusieurs objets. | Masculin pluriel de lourd. |
Where the eye mixes leurs and lourds
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: leurs vs lourds
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: leurs is \lœʁ\ while lourds is \luʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5799, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
leurs is recorded at frequency rank #126, classified as adet, pronounced \lœʁ\. lourds is at rank #5,673, tagged as anadj, pronounced \luʁ\.
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 5799, this pair ranks #428,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of leurs vs lourds
Shared letters: lrsu. Private to "leurs": e. Private to "lourds": do.
"leurs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "lourds" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "leurs" and "lourds" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "leurs" or "lourds" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "leurs" and "lourds" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "leurs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lourds" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #428,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "leurs" and "lourds" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lourds 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 #428,034 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.