teinturesvstoituresWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#41,037
“teintures” frequency rank
#24,057
“toitures” frequency rank
65094
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teintures toitures
Definition Pluriel de teinture. Pluriel de toiture.

Where the eye mixes teintures and toitures

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. teintures runs 9 letters (CVVCCVCVC) against toitures's 8 (CVVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
teintures
8 ch
toitures

Why the eye confuses teintures with toitures

A purely visual mix-up. teintures (\tɛ̃.tyʁ\) and toitures (\twa.tyʁ\) 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 65094, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teintures is recorded at frequency rank #41,037, classified as anoun, pronounced \tɛ̃.tyʁ\. toitures is at rank #24,057, tagged as anoun, pronounced \twa.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 65094, this pair ranks #73,865 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of teintures vs toitures

Shared letters: eirstu. Private to "teintures": n. Private to "toitures": o.

"teintures" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVC  ·  "toitures" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • teintures ← etintures · teinntures · teintrues · teinttures · teintuers · teinturess · teinturres · teinturse
  • toitures ← otitures · tiotures · toitrues · toittures · toituers · toituress · toiturres · toiturse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "teintures" and "toitures" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\tɛ̃.tyʁ\ versus \twa.tyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "teintures" or "toitures"?
"toitures" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,057 in our French list, against #41,037 for "teintures". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "teintures" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "toitures" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,865 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "teintures" and "toitures" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teintées vs teintures". 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 #73,865 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