voicevsvouchWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#918
“voice” frequency rank
#24,635
“vouch” frequency rank
25553
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voice vouch
Definition Sound uttered by the mouth, especially by human beings in speech or song; sound thus uttered considered as possessing some special quality or character. To call on (someone) to be a witness to something.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set voice and vouch apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
voice
5 ch
vouch

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: voice is /vɔɪs/ while vouch is /ˈvaʊt͡ʃ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25553, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voice is recorded at frequency rank #918, classified as anoun, pronounced /vɔɪs/. vouch is at rank #24,635, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈvaʊt͡ʃ/.

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 25553, this pair ranks #393,446 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of voice vs vouch

Shared letters: cov. Private to "voice": ei. Private to "vouch": hu.

"voice" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "vouch" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voiceovice · vioce · vocie · voicce · voiec · vvoice
  • vouchovuch · vocuh · voucch · vouchh · vouhc · vuoch · vvouch

Frequency comparison

voice#918
vouch#24,635

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "voice" and "vouch" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "voice" is a noun and "vouch" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "voice" or "vouch"?
"voice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #918 in our English list, against #24,635 for "vouch". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering voice vs vouch

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “voice”; for a verb, it's “vouch”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “voice” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list