offrevsombreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#633
“offre” frequency rank
#2,488
“ombre” frequency rank
3121
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature offre ombre
Definition Action d’offrir. Obscurité relative que cause un corps opaque en interceptant la lumière.

Where the eye mixes offre and ombre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
offre
5 ch
ombre

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. offre (\ɔfʁ\) and ombre (\ɔ̃bʁ\) 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 3121, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

offre is recorded at frequency rank #633, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔfʁ\. ombre is at rank #2,488, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ̃bʁ\.

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 3121, this pair ranks #434,741 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of offre vs ombre

Shared letters: eor. Private to "offre": f. Private to "ombre": bm.

"offre" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "ombre" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • offrefofre · offer · offrre · ofre · ofrfe
  • ombremobre · obmre · ombbre · omber · ombrre · ommbre · omrbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "offre" and "ombre" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɔfʁ\ versus \ɔ̃bʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "offre" or "ombre"?
"offre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #633 in our French list, against #2,488 for "ombre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "offre" and "ombre". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "offre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ombre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #434,741 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "offre" and "ombre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hombre vs ombre". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list