jouivsJouyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: joui is a verb, Jouy is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“joui” is a verb and “Jouy” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,676
“joui” frequency rank
#34,591
“Jouy” frequency rank
65267
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature joui Jouy
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de jouir. Commune française, située dans le département d’Eure-et-Loir.

Same sound, different letters: joui vs Jouy

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch
joui
4 ch
Jouy

Same sound, different spelling - joui / Jouy

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: joui and Jouy carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ʒwi\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other aname, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - i in “joui” becomes y in “Jouy”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65267, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

joui is recorded at frequency rank #30,676, classified as averb, pronounced \ʒwi\. Jouy is at rank #34,591, tagged as aname, pronounced \ʒwi\.

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 65267, this pair ranks #73,104 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of joui vs Jouy

Shared letters: jou. Private to "joui": i. Private to "Jouy": y.

"joui" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "Jouy" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jouijjoui · joiu · juoi · ojui
  • Jouyjjouy · jouyy · joyu · juoy · ojuy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "joui" and "Jouy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "joui" is a verb and "Jouy" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "joui" or "Jouy"?
"joui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,676 in our French list, against #34,591 for "Jouy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "joui" / "Jouy". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "joui" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Jouy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,104 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "joui" and "Jouy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jor vs Jouy". 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 #73,104 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