Which to use
“louches” and “loutres” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,026
- “louches” frequency rank
- #45,716
- “loutres” frequency rank
- 74742
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | louches | loutres |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de louche. | Pluriel de loutre. |
Where the eye mixes louches and loutres
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. louches and loutres follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses louches with loutres
A purely visual mix-up. louches (\luʃ\) and loutres (\lutʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
louches is recorded at frequency rank #29,026, classified as anoun, pronounced \luʃ\. loutres is at rank #45,716, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lutʁ\.
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 74742, this pair ranks #36,163 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of louches vs loutres
Shared letters: elosu. Private to "louches": ch. Private to "loutres": rt.
"louches" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC · "loutres" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "louches" and "loutres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "louches" vs "loutres" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "louches" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "loutres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #36,163 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "louches" and "loutres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "louées 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 #36,163 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.