trouevstrousWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: troue is a verb, trous is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“troue” is a verb and “trous” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,708
“troue” frequency rank
#4,813
“trous” frequency rank
48521
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature troue trous
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de trouer. Pluriel de trou.

Same sound, different letters: troue vs trous

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. troue (CCVVV) and trous (CCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
troue
5 ch
trous

Homophone desk: troue vs trous

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: troue and trous carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tʁu\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “troue” becomes s in “trous”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48521, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

troue is recorded at frequency rank #43,708, classified as averb, pronounced \tʁu\. 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 48521, this pair ranks #178,257 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of troue vs trous

Shared letters: ortu. Private to "troue": e. Private to "trous": s.

"troue" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV  ·  "trous" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • troue ← rtoue · torue · troeu · trroue · truoe · ttroue
  • trous ← rtous · trosu · trouss · trrous · truos · ttrous

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "troue" for "trous" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "troue" is a verb and "trous" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "troue" or "trous" show up more?
"trous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,813 in our French list, against #43,708 for "troue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"troue" and "trous" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "troue" 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 #178,257 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "troue" and "trous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "trônes vs troue". 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 #178,257 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