tourbevstournéeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,222
“tourbe” frequency rank
#2,395
“tournée” frequency rank
34617
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tourbe tournée
Definition Matière spongieuse et légère qui résulte de la décomposition à l’abri de l’air (dans l’eau) de certains végétaux (sphaigne, hypnum ou joncs) et qui est utilisée comme combustible et comme amendement. Voyage que font les fonctionnaires, les officiers, les prélats, les représentants de commerce, etc., dans les lieux de leur ressort.

Where the eye mixes tourbe and tournée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. tourbe runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against tournée's 7 (CVVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
tourbe
7 ch
tournée

Look-alike desk: tourbe vs tournée

A purely visual mix-up. tourbe (\tuʁb\) and tournée (\tuʁ.ne\) 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 34617, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tourbe is recorded at frequency rank #32,222, classified as anoun, pronounced \tuʁb\. tournée is at rank #2,395, tagged as anoun, 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 34617, this pair ranks #282,563 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tourbe vs tournée

Shared letters: eortu. Private to "tourbe": b. Private to "tournée": .

"tourbe" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "tournée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tourbeoturbe · torube · toubre · tourbbe · toureb · tourrbe · ttourbe · tuorbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tourbe" and "tournée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\tuʁb\ versus \tuʁ.ne\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "tourbe" or "tournée" show up more?
"tournée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,395 in our French list, against #32,222 for "tourbe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "tourbe" and "tournée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tourbe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tournée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,563 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tourbe" and "tournée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tourbe vs tourte". 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 #282,563 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