orgevsorsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,435
“orge” frequency rank
#32,509
“ors” frequency rank
44944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature orge ors
Definition Nom donné à plusieurs plantes du genre Hordeum de la famille des Poacées (Poaceae), céréale à paille utilisée pour nourrir les animaux et caractérisée par un chaume noueux dont la fleur constitue un ensemble d’épis. Pluriel de or.

Where the eye mixes orge and ors

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
orge
3 ch
ors

Look-alike desk: orge vs ors

A purely visual mix-up. orge (\ɔʁʒ\) and ors (\ɔʁ\) 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 44944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

orge is recorded at frequency rank #12,435, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁʒ\. ors is at rank #32,509, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁ\.

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 44944, this pair ranks #206,623 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of orge vs ors

Shared letters: or. Private to "orge": eg. Private to "ors": s.

"orge" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "ors" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • orgeoreg · orgge · orrge · roge

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "orge" for "ors" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɔʁʒ\ versus \ɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "orge" or "ors" show up more?
"orge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,435 in our French list, against #32,509 for "ors". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "orge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ors" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #206,623 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "orge" and "ors" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "och vs ors". 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 #206,623 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