tournésvstoursTell them apart

Quick tell: tournés is a adjective, tours is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tournés” is an adjective and “tours” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,572
“tournés” frequency rank
#2,105
“tours” frequency rank
16677
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tournés tours
Definition Masculin pluriel de tourné. Pluriel de tour.

Where the eye mixes tournés and tours

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

7 ch
tournés
5 ch
tours

Look-alike desk: tournés vs tours

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tournés is \tuʁ.ne\ while tours is \tuʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16677, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tournés is recorded at frequency rank #14,572, classified as anadj, pronounced \tuʁ.ne\. tours is at rank #2,105, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tuʁ\.

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 16677, this pair ranks #386,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tournés vs tours

Shared letters: orstu. Private to "tournés": né. Private to "tours": -.

"tournés" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "tours" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tours ← oturs · torus · tourrs · tourss · tousr · ttours · tuors

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tournés" for "tours" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tournés" is an adjective and "tours" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tournés" or "tours"?
"tours" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,105 in our French list, against #14,572 for "tournés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "tournés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #386,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tournés" and "tours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tournais vs tournés". 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 #386,755 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