Which to use
“obus” and “opus” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,757
- “obus” frequency rank
- #8,746
- “opus” frequency rank
- 19503
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | obus | opus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Projectile creux, en forme de cylindre terminé par un cône, rempli de matière explosive. | Indication utilisée pour désigner un morceau de musique répertorié par un numéro dans l’œuvre complète d’un compositeur. |
Where the eye mixes obus and opus
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: obus vs opus
A purely visual mix-up. obus (\ɔ.by\) and opus (\ɔ.pys\) 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 a single letter - b in “obus” becomes p in “opus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19503, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
obus is recorded at frequency rank #10,757, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.by\. opus is at rank #8,746, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.pys\.
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 19503, this pair ranks #372,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of obus vs opus
Shared letters: osu. Private to "obus": b. Private to "opus": p.
"obus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "opus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "obus" and "opus" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "obus" or "opus" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "obus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "opus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #372,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "obus" and "opus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "obus vs oust". 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 #372,948 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.