TournaivstournezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Tournai is a name, tournez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Tournai” is a name and “tournez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,775
“Tournai” frequency rank
#24,058
“tournez” frequency rank
39833
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Tournai tournez
Definition Commune de la province de Hainaut de la région wallonne de Belgique. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de tourner.

Where the eye mixes Tournai and tournez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Tournai (CVVCCVV) and tournez (CVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
Tournai
7 ch
tournez

Visual trap between Tournai and tournez

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Tournai is \tuʁ.nɛ\ while tournez is \tuʁ.ne\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39833, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Tournai is recorded at frequency rank #15,775, classified as aname, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\. tournez is at rank #24,058, tagged as averb, 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 39833, this pair ranks #245,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Tournai vs tournez

Shared letters: nortu. Private to "Tournai": ai. Private to "tournez": ez.

"Tournai" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV  ·  "tournez" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Tournaioturnai · torunai · tounrai · tourani · tournia · tournnai · tourrnai · ttournai
  • tournezoturnez · torunez · tounrez · tourenz · tournezz · tournnez · tournze · tourrnez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Tournai" and "tournez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Tournai" is a name and "tournez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Tournai" or "tournez" show up more?
"Tournai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,775 in our French list, against #24,058 for "tournez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Tournai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tournez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #245,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Tournai" and "tournez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tournez 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 #245,025 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