Which to use
“envie” is a noun and “envieux” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #527
- “envie” frequency rank
- #30,593
- “envieux” frequency rank
- 31120
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | envie | envieux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Chagrin ou haine que l’on ressent du bonheur, des succès, des avantages d’autrui. | Qui a de l’envie, qui est sujet à l’envie. |
Where the eye mixes envie and envieux
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. envie runs 5 letters (VCCVV) against envieux's 7 (VCCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between envie and envieux
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: envie is \ɑ̃.vi\ while envieux is \ɑ̃.vjø\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “envie” sits inside “envieux”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31120, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
envie is recorded at frequency rank #527, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.vi\. envieux is at rank #30,593, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.vjø\.
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 31120, this pair ranks #305,846 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of envie vs envieux
Shared letters: einv. Private to "envie": -. Private to "envieux": ux.
"envie" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV · "envieux" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "envie" and "envieux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "envie" or "envieux"?
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 "envie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "envieux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #305,846 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "envie" and "envieux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "envient vs envieux". 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 #305,846 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.