émoivsemojiTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,825
“émoi” frequency rank
#41,765
“emoji” frequency rank
66590
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émoi emoji
Definition Forte inquiétude. Émoticône ou pictogramme ayant un point de code unique, utilisé dans les messages électroniques, par exemple 🚃 (U+1F683 dans Unicode).

Where the eye mixes émoi and emoji

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. émoi runs 4 letters (VCVV) against emoji's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
émoi
5 ch
emoji

Why the eye confuses émoi with emoji

A purely visual mix-up. émoi (\e.mwa\) and emoji (\e.mo.ʒi\) 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 66590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

émoi is recorded at frequency rank #24,825, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.mwa\. emoji is at rank #41,765, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.mo.ʒi\.

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 66590, this pair ranks #67,146 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of émoi vs emoji

Shared letters: imo. Private to "émoi": é. Private to "emoji": ej.

"émoi" · 4 letters · shape VCVV  ·  "emoji" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • emoji ← emjoi · emmoji · emoij · emojji · eomji · meoji

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "émoi" for "emoji" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.mwa\ versus \e.mo.ʒi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "émoi" vs "emoji" - which ranks higher?
"émoi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,825 in our French list, against #41,765 for "emoji". 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 "émoi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "emoji" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #67,146 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émoi" and "emoji" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "emoji vs emojis". 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 #67,146 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