tondrevstouréWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,401
“tondre” frequency rank
#18,893
“touré” frequency rank
49294
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tondre touré
Definition Couper à ras la laine ou le poil des bêtes. Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe tourer.

Where the eye mixes tondre and touré

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tondre runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against touré's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
tondre
5 ch
touré

Look-alike desk: tondre vs touré

A purely visual mix-up. tondre (\tɔ̃dʁ\) and touré (\tu.ʁe\) 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 49294, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tondre is recorded at frequency rank #30,401, classified as averb, pronounced \tɔ̃dʁ\. touré is at rank #18,893, tagged as averb, pronounced \tu.ʁe\.

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 49294, this pair ranks #171,863 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tondre vs touré

Shared letters: ort. Private to "tondre": den. Private to "touré": .

"tondre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "touré" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tondreotndre · tnodre · todnre · tonddre · tonder · tondrre · tonndre · tonrde

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tondre" and "touré" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\tɔ̃dʁ\ versus \tu.ʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "tondre" or "touré" show up more?
"touré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,893 in our French list, against #30,401 for "tondre". 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 "tondre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "touré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,863 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tondre" and "touré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tondre vs tone". 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 #171,863 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