tournantsvstournentWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tournants is a adjective, tournent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tournants” is an adjective and “tournent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,496
“tournants” frequency rank
#7,912
“tournent” frequency rank
54408
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tournants tournent
Definition Masculin pluriel de tournant. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de tourner.

Where the eye mixes tournants and tournent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. tournants runs 9 letters (CVVCCVCCC) against tournent's 8 (CVVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
tournants
8 ch
tournent

Look-alike desk: tournants vs tournent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tournants is \tuʁ.nɑ̃\ while tournent is \tuʁn\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54408, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tournants is recorded at frequency rank #46,496, classified as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.nɑ̃\. tournent is at rank #7,912, tagged as averb, pronounced \tuʁn\.

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 54408, this pair ranks #134,243 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tournants vs tournent

Shared letters: nortu. Private to "tournants": as. Private to "tournent": e.

"tournants" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCC  ·  "tournent" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tournantsoturnants · torunants · tounrants · tourannts · tournannts · tournanst · tournantss · tournantts
  • tournentoturnent · torunent · tounrent · tourennt · tournennt · tournentt · tournetn · tournnent

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tournants" and "tournent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tournants" is an adjective and "tournent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tournants" or "tournent"?
"tournent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,912 in our French list, against #46,496 for "tournants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tournants" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tournent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #134,243 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tournants" and "tournent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tournais vs tournants". 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 #134,243 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