navetvsneveuTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,057
“navet” frequency rank
#6,000
“neveu” frequency rank
35057
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature navet neveu
Definition Plante de la famille des Brassicacées, que l’on cultive pour sa racine tuberculée comestible. ou Petit-fils.

Where the eye mixes navet and neveu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. navet (CVCVC) and neveu (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
navet
5 ch
neveu

Look-alike desk: navet vs neveu

A purely visual mix-up. navet (\na.vɛ\) and neveu (\nə.vø\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35057, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

navet is recorded at frequency rank #29,057, classified as anoun, pronounced \na.vɛ\. neveu is at rank #6,000, tagged as anoun, pronounced \nə.vø\.

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 35057, this pair ranks #279,509 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of navet vs neveu

Shared letters: env. Private to "navet": at. Private to "neveu": u.

"navet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "neveu" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • navet ← anvet · naevt · navett · navte · navvet · nnavet · nvaet
  • neveu ← enveu · neevu · nevveu · nneveu · nveeu

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "navet" for "neveu" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\na.vɛ\ versus \nə.vø\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "navet" vs "neveu" - which ranks higher?
"neveu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,000 in our French list, against #29,057 for "navet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "navet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "neveu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #279,509 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "navet" and "neveu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "naïves vs navet". 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 #279,509 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