tirévsturfTell them apart

Quick tell: tiré is a adjective, turf is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tiré” is an adjective and “turf” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,548
“tiré” frequency rank
#49,415
“turf” frequency rank
51963
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tiré turf
Definition Abattu, amaigri, qui témoigne d’usure, de fatigue (en parlant du visage, des traits). Lieu où se font les courses de chevaux.

Where the eye mixes tiré and turf

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. tiré (CVCV) and turf (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
tiré
4 ch
turf

Visual trap between tiré and turf

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tiré is \ti.ʁe\ while turf is \tyʁf\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51963, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tiré is recorded at frequency rank #2,548, classified as anadj, pronounced \ti.ʁe\. turf is at rank #49,415, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tyʁf\.

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 51963, this pair ranks #151,136 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tiré vs turf

Shared letters: rt. Private to "tiré": ié. Private to "turf": fu.

"tiré" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "turf" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • turf ← truf · tturf · tufr · turff · turrf · utrf

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tiré" for "turf" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tiré" is an adjective and "turf" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "tiré" or "turf" show up more?
"tiré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,548 in our French list, against #49,415 for "turf". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tiré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "turf" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,136 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tiré" and "turf" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs turf". 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 #151,136 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