parurevspâtureWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#21,107
“parure” frequency rank
#29,495
“pâture” frequency rank
50602
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature parure pâture
Definition Ornement, ajustement, ce qui sert à parer. Nourriture des bêtes, des oiseaux, des poissons.

Where the eye mixes parure and pâture

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. parure and pâture follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
parure
6 ch
pâture

Why the eye confuses parure with pâture

A purely visual mix-up. parure (\pa.ʁyʁ\) and pâture (\pa.tyʁ\) 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 50602, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

parure is recorded at frequency rank #21,107, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.ʁyʁ\. pâture is at rank #29,495, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.tyʁ\.

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 50602, this pair ranks #161,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of parure vs pâture

Shared letters: epru. Private to "parure": a. Private to "pâture": tâ.

"parure" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "pâture" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • parure ← aprure · parrure · paruer · parurre · paurre · pparure · praure

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "parure" for "pâture" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pa.ʁyʁ\ versus \pa.tyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "parure" vs "pâture" - which ranks higher?
"parure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,107 in our French list, against #29,495 for "pâture". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "parure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pâture" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #161,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "parure" and "pâture" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parure vs prude". 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 #161,365 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