Ob vs oui, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Ob” is a name and “oui” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,155
“Ob” frequency rank: #132
“oui” frequency rank: 31287
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Ob	oui
Definition	Fleuve de Sibérie, qui se jette dans l’océan Arctique.	Mot utilisé pour apporter une réponse affirmative ou marquer l'accord sur une proposition. Il s’emploie aussi au début d’une phrase qui ne répond pas à une question exprimée ou au cours d’une phrase, pour marquer ou accentuer le caractère affirmatif de cette phrase. Il s’emploie dans le discours direct en réponse à une interrogation. Il est alors seul ou joint à des adverbes qui renforcent l’affirmation comme certes, vraiment, etc.

Letter map: Ob vs oui

Shared letters muted; letters that set Ob and oui apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

oui

Role in the sentence - Ob and oui

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Ob is aname and ouianadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31287, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Ob is recorded at frequency rank #31,155, classified as aname. oui is at rank #132, tagged as anadv, pronounced \wi\.

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 31287, this pair ranks #304,743 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Ob vs oui

Shared letters: o. Private to "Ob": b. Private to "oui": iu.

"Ob" · 2 letters · shape VC · "oui" · 3 letters · shape VVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Ob" and "oui" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Ob" is a name and "oui" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "Ob" or "oui"?

"oui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #132 in our French list, against #31,155 for "Ob". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "Ob" vs "oui" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "Ob" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "oui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #304,743 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Ob" and "oui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ob vs och". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #304,743 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.