lungvslureTell them apart

Which to use

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

#46,871
“lung” frequency rank
#48,019
“lure” frequency rank
94890
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lung lure
Definition Poumon. Leurre.

Where the eye mixes lung and lure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lung (CVCC) and lure (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
lung
4 ch
lure

Visual trap between lung and lure

A purely visual mix-up. lung (\lʌŋ\) and lure (\lʊər\) 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 94890, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lung is recorded at frequency rank #46,871, classified as anoun, pronounced \lʌŋ\. lure is at rank #48,019, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lʊər\.

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 94890, this pair ranks #1,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lung vs lure

Shared letters: lu. Private to "lung": gn. Private to "lure": er.

"lung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lung ← llung · lnug · lugn · lungg · lunng · ulng
  • lure ← llure · lrue · lurre · ulre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lung" and "lure" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\lʌŋ\ versus \lʊər\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lung" or "lure"?
"lung" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #46,871 in our French list, against #48,019 for "lure". 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 "lung" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lung" and "lure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lar 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 #1,358 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