tuervstueraTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,426
“tuer” frequency rank
#24,798
“tuera” frequency rank
26224
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tuer tuera
Definition Ôter la vie d’une manière violente ; ne se dit pas quand il s’agit d'une euthanasie, ni à la forme pronominale dans le cas d’une mort accidentelle par noyade, étouffement ou empoisonnement : on emploie alors se noyer, s’étouffer, s’empoisonner. Troisième personne du singulier du futur de tuer.

Where the eye mixes tuer and tuera

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
tuer
5 ch
tuera

Visual trap between tuer and tuera

A purely visual mix-up. tuer (\tɥe\) and tuera (\ty.ʁa\) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “tuer” sits inside “tuera”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26224, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tuer is recorded at frequency rank #1,426, classified as averb, pronounced \tɥe\. tuera is at rank #24,798, tagged as averb, pronounced \ty.ʁa\.

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 26224, this pair ranks #336,361 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tuer vs tuera

Shared letters: ertu. Private to "tuer": -. Private to "tuera": a.

"tuer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tuera" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tuerteur · ttuer · tuerr · ture · uter
  • tuerateura · ttuera · tuear · tuerra · turea · utera

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tuer" and "tuera" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\tɥe\ versus \ty.ʁa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tuer" or "tuera"?
"tuer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,426 in our French list, against #24,798 for "tuera". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "tuer" and "tuera" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tuer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tuera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #336,361 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tuer" and "tuera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tuera vs turf". 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 #336,361 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