Which to use
“ordure” and “orque” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,690
- “ordure” frequency rank
- #46,932
- “orque” frequency rank
- 63622
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ordure | orque |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tout ce qui est malpropre, immondice, crasse. | Espèce de grand cétacé à dents à livrée noire et blanche et à nageoire dorsale très haute. |
Where the eye mixes ordure and orque
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. ordure runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against orque's 5 (VCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between ordure and orque
A purely visual mix-up. ordure (\ɔʁ.dyʁ\) and orque (\ɔʁk\) 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 63622, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ordure is recorded at frequency rank #16,690, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁ.dyʁ\. orque is at rank #46,932, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁk\.
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 63622, this pair ranks #81,064 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ordure vs orque
Shared letters: eoru. Private to "ordure": d. Private to "orque": q.
"ordure" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "orque" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ordure" and "orque" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "ordure" or "orque"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "ordure" and "orque" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ordure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "orque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #81,064 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ordure" and "orque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "orme vs orque". 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 #81,064 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.