liguevsligureConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#1,166
“ligue” frequency rank
#44,548
“ligure” frequency rank
45714
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ligue ligure
Definition Confédération de plusieurs États, pour se défendre ou pour attaquer. Relatif à la Ligurie ou sa culture.

Where the eye mixes ligue and ligure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
ligue
6 ch
ligure

Visual trap between ligue and ligure

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ligue is \liɡ\ while ligure is \li.ɡyʁ\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45714, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ligue is recorded at frequency rank #1,166, classified as anoun, pronounced \liɡ\. 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 45714, this pair ranks #200,584 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ligue vs ligure

Shared letters: egilu. Private to "ligue": -. Private to "ligure": r.

"ligue" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "ligure" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ligueilgue · lgiue · ligeu · liggue · liuge · lligue
  • ligureilgure · lgiure · liggure · ligrue · liguer · ligurre · liugre · lligure

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ligue" for "ligure" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ligue" is a noun and "ligure" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ligue" or "ligure" show up more?
"ligue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,166 in our French list, against #44,548 for "ligure". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "ligue" and "ligure" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ligue" 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 #200,584 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ligue" 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 #200,584 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