obusvsoutConfusable pair

Quick tell: obus is a noun, out is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“obus” is a noun and “out” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,757
“obus” frequency rank
#4,007
“out” frequency rank
14764
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature obus out
Definition Projectile creux, en forme de cylindre terminé par un cône, rempli de matière explosive. Hors des limites du terrain.

Where the eye mixes obus and out

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
obus
3 ch
out

Visual trap between obus and out

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: obus is \ɔ.by\ while out is \awt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14764, 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\. out is at rank #4,007, tagged as anadj, pronounced \awt\.

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 14764, this pair ranks #395,314 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of obus vs out

Shared letters: ou. Private to "obus": bs. Private to "out": t.

"obus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "out" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • obusbous · obbus · obsu · obuss · oubs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "obus" for "out" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obus" is a noun and "out" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "obus" or "out"?
"out" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,007 in our French list, against #10,757 for "obus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "obus" and "out" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "obus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "out" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,314 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "obus" and "out" 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 #395,314 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