livravslivreWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: livra is a verb, livre is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“livra” is a verb and “livre” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,712
“livra” frequency rank
#449
“livre” frequency rank
46161
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature livra livre
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de livrer. Assemblage de feuilles manuscrites ou imprimées destinées à être lues.

Where the eye mixes livra and livre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. livra and livre follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
livra
5 ch
livre

Look-alike desk: livra vs livre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: livra is \li.vʁa\ while livre is \livʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “livra” becomes e in “livre”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46161, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

livra is recorded at frequency rank #45,712, classified as averb, pronounced \li.vʁa\. livre is at rank #449, tagged as anoun, pronounced \livʁ\.

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 46161, this pair ranks #197,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of livra vs livre

Shared letters: ilrv. Private to "livra": a. Private to "livre": e.

"livra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "livre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • livra ← ilvra · lirva · livar · livrra · livvra · llivra · lvira
  • livre ← ilvre · lirve · liver · livrre · livvre · llivre · lvire

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "livra" and "livre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "livra" is a verb and "livre" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "livra" vs "livre" - which ranks higher?
"livre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #449 in our French list, against #45,712 for "livra". 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 "livra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "livre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #197,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "livra" and "livre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "livra vs Livry". 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 #197,110 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