tournavstournaitConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#20,304
“tourna” frequency rank
#14,571
“tournait” frequency rank
34875
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tourna tournait
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de tourner. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de tourner.

Where the eye mixes tourna and tournait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. tourna runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against tournait's 8 (CVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
tourna
8 ch
tournait

Look-alike desk: tourna vs tournait

A purely visual mix-up. tourna (\tuʁ.na\) and tournait (\tuʁ.nɛ\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “tourna” sits inside “tournait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34875, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tourna is recorded at frequency rank #20,304, classified as averb, pronounced \tuʁ.na\. tournait is at rank #14,571, tagged as averb, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\.

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 34875, this pair ranks #280,737 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tourna vs tournait

Shared letters: anortu. Private to "tourna": -. Private to "tournait": i.

"tourna" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "tournait" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tournaoturna · toruna · tounra · touran · tournna · tourrna · ttourna · tuorna
  • tournaitoturnait · torunait · tounrait · touranit · tournaitt · tournati · tourniat · tournnait

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tourna" and "tournait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\tuʁ.na\ versus \tuʁ.nɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "tourna" vs "tournait" - which ranks higher?
"tournait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,571 in our French list, against #20,304 for "tourna". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tourna" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tournait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #280,737 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tourna" and "tournait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tourna vs tournais". 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 #280,737 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