Which to use
“turban” and “turbine” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #26,570
- “turban” frequency rank
- #22,724
- “turbine” frequency rank
- 49294
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | turban | turbine |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Coiffure d’homme usitée chez les Orientaux et faite d’une longue bande d’étoffe, qui est roulée et entrelacée autour de la tête. | Dispositif rotatif mu par un fluide et communiquant son mouvement à une machine. |
Where the eye mixes turban and turbine
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. turban runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against turbine's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: turban vs turbine
A purely visual mix-up. turban (\tyʁ.bɑ̃\) and turbine (\tyʁ.bin\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49294, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
turban is recorded at frequency rank #26,570, classified as anoun, pronounced \tyʁ.bɑ̃\. turbine is at rank #22,724, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tyʁ.bin\.
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 49294, this pair ranks #171,863 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of turban vs turbine
Shared letters: bnrtu. Private to "turban": a. Private to "turbine": ei.
"turban" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "turbine" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "turban" and "turbine" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "turban" or "turbine" show up more?
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 "turban" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "turbine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #171,863 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "turban" and "turbine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "terrine vs turbine". 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 #171,863 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.