professeurvsprofesseureTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,170
“professeur” frequency rank
#15,467
“professeure” frequency rank
16637
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature professeur professeure
Definition Personne qui enseigne une science ou un art, quel que soit le niveau : de l’enseignement primaire à l’université, ou en dehors d’une structure. Enseignante, femme qui professe, qui enseigne une science ou un art.

Same sound, different letters: professeur vs professeure

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 10 letters.

10 ch
professeur
11 ch
professeure

Homophone desk: professeur vs professeure

This is the hard kind. professeur and professeure are pronounced identically (\pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “professeur” sits inside “professeure”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16637, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

professeur is recorded at frequency rank #1,170, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\. professeure is at rank #15,467, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\.

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 16637, this pair ranks #386,927 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of professeur vs professeure

Shared letters: efoprsu. Private to "professeur": -. Private to "professeure": -.

"professeur" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVCCVVC  ·  "professeure" · 11 letters · shape CCVCVCCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • professeurporfesseur · pprofesseur · prfoesseur · proefsseur · profesesur · profeseur · professeru · professeurr
  • professeureporfesseure · pprofesseure · prfoesseure · proefsseure · profesesure · profeseure · professerue · professeuer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "professeur" and "professeure" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁɔ.fɛ.sœʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "professeur" or "professeure" show up more?
"professeur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,170 in our French list, against #15,467 for "professeure". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "professeur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "professeure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #386,927 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "professeur" and "professeure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "processeurs vs professeure". 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 #386,927 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