trovstrousWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#29,579
“tro” frequency rank
#4,813
“trous” frequency rank
34392
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tro trous
Definition Tour (du verbe tourner). Pluriel de trou.

Where the eye mixes tro and trous

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
tro
5 ch
trous

Why the eye confuses tro with trous

A purely visual mix-up. tro (\ˈtroː\) and trous (\tʁu\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “tro” sits inside “trous”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34392, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tro is recorded at frequency rank #29,579, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈtroː\. trous is at rank #4,813, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tʁu\.

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 34392, this pair ranks #284,151 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tro vs trous

Shared letters: ort. Private to "tro": -. Private to "trous": su.

"tro" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "trous" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • trousrtous · trosu · trouss · trrous · truos · ttrous

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tro" and "trous" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈtroː\ versus \tʁu\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tro" or "trous"?
"trous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,813 in our French list, against #29,579 for "tro". 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 "tro" and "trous" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "trous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #284,151 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tro" and "trous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs tro". 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 #284,151 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