louéesvsloutresConfusable pair

Which to use

“louées” and “loutres” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,026
“louées” frequency rank
#45,716
“loutres” frequency rank
89742
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature louées loutres
Definition Pluriel de louée. Pluriel de loutre.

Where the eye mixes louées and loutres

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. louées runs 6 letters (CVVVVC) against loutres's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
louées
7 ch
loutres

Why the eye confuses louées with loutres

A purely visual mix-up. louées (\lu.e\) 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

louées is recorded at frequency rank #44,026, classified as anoun, pronounced \lu.e\. 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 89742, this pair ranks #5,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of louées vs loutres

Shared letters: elosu. Private to "louées": é. Private to "loutres": rt.

"louées" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC  ·  "loutres" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • loutres ← lloutres · lotures · lourtes · louters · loutress · loutrres · loutrse · louttres

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "louées" and "loutres" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\lu.e\ versus \lutʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "louées" or "loutres"?
"louées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,026 in our French list, against #45,716 for "loutres". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "louées" 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 #5,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "louées" and "loutres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "louées vs louvet". 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 #5,477 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