lurevslusConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#48,019
“lure” frequency rank
#12,613
“lus” frequency rank
60632
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lure lus
Definition Leurre. Masculin pluriel de lu.

Where the eye mixes lure and lus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lure runs 4 letters (CVCV) against lus's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
lure
3 ch
lus

Visual trap between lure and lus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lure is \lʊər\ while lus is \ly\. 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 60632, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lure is recorded at frequency rank #48,019, classified as anoun, pronounced \lʊər\. lus is at rank #12,613, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ly\.

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 60632, this pair ranks #96,619 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lure vs lus

Shared letters: lu. Private to "lure": er. Private to "lus": s.

"lure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lure ← llure · lrue · lurre · ulre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lure" and "lus" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lure" is a noun and "lus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lure" vs "lus" - which ranks higher?
"lus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,613 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #96,619 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lure" and "lus" 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 #96,619 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