Which to use
“tourment” and “tourments” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #39,073
- “tourment” frequency rank
- #24,794
- “tourments” frequency rank
- 63867
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tourment | tourments |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Supplice, torture. | Pluriel de tourment. |
Same sound, different letters: tourment vs tourments
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. tourment runs 8 letters (CVVCCVCC) against tourments's 9 (CVVCCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - tourment and tourments
This is the hard kind. tourment and tourments are pronounced identically (\tuʁ.mɑ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “tourment” sits inside “tourments”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tourment is recorded at frequency rank #39,073, classified as anoun, pronounced \tuʁ.mɑ̃\. tourments is at rank #24,794, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tuʁ.mɑ̃\.
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 63867, this pair ranks #79,819 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of tourment vs tourments
Shared letters: emnortu. Private to "tourment": -. Private to "tourments": s.
"tourment" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC · "tourments" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "tourment" for "tourments" ever safe?
Frequency check: "tourment" vs "tourments" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
"tourment" and "tourments" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "tourment" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tourments" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #79,819 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tourment" and "tourments" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tourment vs tourmenter". 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 #79,819 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.