tounesvstournéWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tounes is a noun, tourné is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#43,188
“tounes” frequency rank
#3,300
“tourné” frequency rank
46488
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tounes tourné
Definition Pluriel de toune. Aigri.

Where the eye mixes tounes and tourné

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. tounes (CVVCVC) and tourné (CVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
tounes
6 ch
tourné

Why the eye confuses tounes with tourné

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tounes is \tun\ while tourné is \tuʁ.ne\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46488, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tounes is recorded at frequency rank #43,188, classified as anoun, pronounced \tun\. tourné is at rank #3,300, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.ne\.

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 46488, this pair ranks #194,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tounes vs tourné

Shared letters: notu. Private to "tounes": es. Private to "tourné": ré.

"tounes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "tourné" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tounes ← otunes · tonues · touens · touness · tounnes · tounse · ttounes · tuones

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tounes" for "tourné" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tounes" is a noun and "tourné" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tounes" or "tourné"?
"tourné" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,300 in our French list, against #43,188 for "tounes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "tounes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tourné" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tounes" and "tourné" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tounes vs trônes". 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 #194,531 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