Which to use
“tournait” is a verb and “tournois” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,571
- “tournait” frequency rank
- #7,505
- “tournois” frequency rank
- 22076
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tournait | tournois |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de tourner. | 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 tournait and tournois
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. tournait and tournois follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: tournait vs tournois
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tournait is \tuʁ.nɛ\ while tournois is \tuʁ.nwa\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22076, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tournait is recorded at frequency rank #14,571, classified as averb, 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 22076, this pair ranks #359,928 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of tournait vs tournois
Shared letters: inortu. Private to "tournait": a. Private to "tournois": s.
"tournait" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC · "tournois" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "tournait" and "tournois" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "tournait" or "tournois" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "tournait" 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 #359,928 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tournait" and "tournois" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tournais vs tournait". 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 #359,928 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.