uréevsURLWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#48,849
“urée” frequency rank
#11,874
“URL” frequency rank
60723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature urée URL
Definition Substance cristallisable, incolore, de formule chimique COH₄N₂, dont la présence caractérise l’urine de la plupart des animaux dont l’homme. Adresse d’une ressource Internet comme une page web par exemple, souvent confondue avec l’URI.

Where the eye mixes urée and URL

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. urée runs 4 letters (VCVV) against URL's 3 (VCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
urée
3 ch
URL

Look-alike desk: urée vs URL

A purely visual mix-up. urée (\y.ʁe\) and URL (\y.ɛ.ʁ‿ɛl\) 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 60723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

urée is recorded at frequency rank #48,849, classified as anoun, pronounced \y.ʁe\. URL is at rank #11,874, tagged as anoun, pronounced \y.ɛ.ʁ‿ɛl\.

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 60723, this pair ranks #96,135 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of urée vs URL

Shared letters: ru. Private to "urée": eé. Private to "URL": l.

"urée" · 4 letters · shape VCVV  ·  "URL" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "urée" and "URL" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\y.ʁe\ versus \y.ɛ.ʁ‿ɛl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "urée" vs "URL" - which ranks higher?
"URL" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,874 in our French list, against #48,849 for "urée". 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 "urée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "URL" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #96,135 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "urée" and "URL" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "urée vs urètre". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #96,135 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