oie

\wa\

/\wa\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“oie” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #15,452) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#15,452
frequency rank, French
1,642
“O” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Oiseau palmipède aquatique, apparenté au canard mais plus gros et plus grand, vivant à l’état sauvage ou à l’état domestique.

Corpus desk

Index FR-oie · oie · French

oie · rank #15,452 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #15,452
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,642
  • PHOTO-FINISH occupera

Nearest frequency peer: occupera (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « oie »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « oie » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

oie vs on
33% similar
oie vs ou
33% similar
oie vs or
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for oie
PropertyValue
Headwordoie
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\wa\
Letters3
Frequency rank#15,452
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « oie »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).oiese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « occupera » (#15,451), « orlando » (#15,453), « outrage » (#15,454). Parmi 1,642 lemmes en « O », « oie » est au #15,452. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for oie is neighbouring look-alikes ("on", "ou", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \wa\. Frequency #15,452 among 1,642 “O” headwords. 5 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for oie, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "on", "ou", "or", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is oie, spelled O-I-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Oiseau palmipède aquatique, apparenté au canard mais plus gros et plus grand, vivant à l’état sauvage ou à l’état domestique.
  2. 2
    Femelle de cette espèce, le mâle étant le jars.
  3. 3
    Indistinctement, bernache du Canada (« outarde ») ou oie des neiges (« oie blanche »).
  4. 4
    Personne sotte.
  5. 5
    Meuble représentant l’animal du même nom dans les armoiries. Elle est généralement représentée passante sans aucun caractère particulier la distinguant du jars, ce qui peut induire une confusion. À rapprocher de canard, cane, canette, cygne et jars.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how oie appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Cette année-là, une épidémie s’étant abattue sur les phasianidés, Mme Lefur dut s’estimer heureuse de pouvoir remplacer par une oie sa dinde noëlesque.
  2. Les oies dormaient sur une patte ; le bout de l’autre, fripé à dessein comme un gant, pendait négligemment de leur gousset. Et soudain les voilà qui clament, lançant leur cou et le ramenant en piston de trombone à coulisse, sans ensemble et sans mesure, car ce n’est qu’une répétition.

This word in other languages

goose(English)ganso(Español)Gans(Deutsch)ganso(Português)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "oie"?
"oie" is spelled O-I-E. The IPA pronunciation is \wa\.
What does "oie" mean?
As a noun, "oie" means: Oiseau palmipède aquatique, apparenté au canard mais plus gros et plus grand, vivant à l’état sauvage ou à l’état domestique.
What words are commonly confused with "oie"?
"oie" is commonly confused with "on", "ou", "or". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "oie"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "oie" is \wa\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "oie" come from?
"oie" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "oie", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

psa#15,471FDP#15,380Fax#15,379win#15,540

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list