ouf

\uf\

/\uf\/ intj

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

The verdict

“ouf” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,865) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#6,865
frequency rank, French
1,642
“O” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Marque le soulagement.

Corpus desk

Index FR-ouf · ouf · French

ouf · rank #6,865 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #6,865
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,642
  • PHOTO-FINISH OTAN

Nearest frequency peer: OTAN (-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 « ouf »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « ouf » 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).

ouf vs ow
33% similar
ouf vs ox
33% similar
ouf vs oy
33% similar

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

Key facts for ouf
PropertyValue
Headwordouf
LanguageFrench
Part of speechInterjection
IPA\uf\
Letters3
Frequency rank#6,865
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « ouf »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.oufse place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « OTAN » (#6,864), « particulières » (#6,866), « otage » (#6,863). Parmi 1,642 lemmes en « O », « ouf » est au #6,865. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ouf is neighbouring look-alikes ("ow", "ox", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced \uf\. Frequency #6,865 among 1,642 “O” headwords. Gloss: "Marque le soulagement.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ouf, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ow", "ox", "oy", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is ouf, spelled O-U-F.

Definition

  1. 1
    Marque le soulagement.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Cette disparition était pour lui une délivrance. Je l’ai entendu faire « ouf ! » non pas une fois, mais vingt fois.
  2. — Mes cinq ans finis, je m’tire. Avec un ouf comme ça !

Synonyms

pfiou

This word in other languages

phew(English)uf(Español)puh(Deutsch)

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 "ouf"?
"ouf" is spelled O-U-F. The IPA pronunciation is \uf\.
What does "ouf" mean?
As an interjection, "ouf" means: Marque le soulagement.
What words are commonly confused with "ouf"?
"ouf" is commonly confused with "ow", "ox", "oy". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ouf"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ouf" is \uf\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ouf" come from?
"ouf" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "ouf", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

ong#6,860Sex#6,888sun#6,897eva#6,822

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list