orsvsourseConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#32,509
“ors” frequency rank
#35,186
“ourse” frequency rank
67695
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ors ourse
Definition Pluriel de or. Femelle de l’ours.

Where the eye mixes ors and ourse

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

3 ch
ors
5 ch
ourse

Visual trap between ors and ourse

A purely visual mix-up. ors (\ɔʁ\) and ourse (\uʁs\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67695, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ors is recorded at frequency rank #32,509, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔʁ\. ourse is at rank #35,186, tagged as anoun, pronounced \uʁs\.

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 67695, this pair ranks #62,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ors vs ourse

Shared letters: ors. Private to "ors": -. Private to "ourse": eu.

"ors" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "ourse" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ourseoruse · oures · ourrse · oursse · ousre · uorse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ors" for "ourse" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɔʁ\ versus \uʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "ors" or "ourse"?
"ors" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,509 in our French list, against #35,186 for "ourse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ors" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ourse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ors" and "ourse" 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 #62,282 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