tournavstournisTell them apart

Quick tell: tourna is a verb, tournis is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tourna” is a verb and “tournis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,304
“tourna” frequency rank
#44,230
“tournis” frequency rank
64534
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tourna tournis
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de tourner. Maladie des moutons et des bœufs dans laquelle, pris d’une sorte de vertige, ils tournent convulsivement sur eux-mêmes.

Where the eye mixes tourna and tournis

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

6 ch
tourna
7 ch
tournis

Look-alike desk: tourna vs tournis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tourna is \tuʁ.na\ while tournis is \tuʁ.ni\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64534, 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\. tournis is at rank #44,230, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tuʁ.ni\.

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 64534, this pair ranks #76,593 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tourna vs tournis

Shared letters: nortu. Private to "tourna": a. Private to "tournis": is.

"tourna" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "tournis" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tournaoturna · toruna · tounra · touran · tournna · tourrna · ttourna · tuorna
  • tournisoturnis · torunis · tounris · tourins · tourniss · tournnis · tournsi · tourrnis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tourna" and "tournis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tourna" is a verb and "tournis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "tourna" or "tournis" show up more?
"tourna" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,304 in our French list, against #44,230 for "tournis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tourna" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tournis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #76,593 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tourna" and "tournis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tournais vs tournis". 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 #76,593 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