tournaisvstournoisWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,402
“tournais” frequency rank
#7,505
“tournois” frequency rank
56907
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tournais tournois
Definition Relatif au Tourne, commune française située dans le département de la Gironde. Relatif à des pièces de monnaie qui se frappaient à Tours et qui étaient plus faibles d’un cinquième que celles de Paris, ou frappées sur le modèle de celles de Tours après le XIII^(ème) siècle.

Where the eye mixes tournais and tournois

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. tournais and tournois follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
tournais
8 ch
tournois

Why the eye confuses tournais with tournois

A purely visual mix-up. tournais (\tuʁ.nɛ\) and tournois (\tuʁ.nwa\) 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 a single letter - a in “tournais” becomes o in “tournois”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56907, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tournais is recorded at frequency rank #49,402, classified as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.nɛ\. tournois is at rank #7,505, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.nwa\.

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 56907, this pair ranks #118,210 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tournais vs tournois

Shared letters: inorstu. Private to "tournais": a. Private to "tournois": -.

"tournais" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC  ·  "tournois" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tournaisoturnais · torunais · tounrais · touranis · tournaiss · tournasi · tournias · tournnais
  • tournoisoturnois · torunois · tounrois · tournios · tournnois · tournoiss · tournosi · touronis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tournais" for "tournois" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tuʁ.nɛ\ versus \tuʁ.nwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "tournais" vs "tournois" - which ranks higher?
"tournois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,505 in our French list, against #49,402 for "tournais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tournais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tournois" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #118,210 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tournais" and "tournois" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "touchais 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 #118,210 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