opusvsoupsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: opus is a noun, oups is an intj, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“opus” is a noun and “oups” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,746
“opus” frequency rank
#14,106
“oups” frequency rank
22852
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature opus oups
Definition Indication utilisée pour désigner un morceau de musique répertorié par un numéro dans l’œuvre complète d’un compositeur. Marque la surprise chez quelqu’un lorsqu’il prend conscience qu’une mésaventure lui arrive.

Where the eye mixes opus and oups

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
opus
4 ch
oups

Look-alike desk: opus vs oups

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: opus is \ɔ.pys\ while oups is \ups\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (pu ↔ up) - a transposition the eye reads straight past, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22852, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

opus is recorded at frequency rank #8,746, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.pys\. oups is at rank #14,106, tagged as anintj, pronounced \ups\.

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 22852, this pair ranks #355,792 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of opus vs oups

Shared letters: opsu. Private to "opus": -. Private to "oups": -.

"opus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "oups" · 4 letters · shape VVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • opusoppus · opsu · opuss · pous
  • oupsoupps · oupss · ousp · uops

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "opus" for "oups" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "opus" is a noun and "oups" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "opus" vs "oups" - which ranks higher?
"opus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,746 in our French list, against #14,106 for "oups". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "opus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "oups" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #355,792 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "opus" and "oups" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oups 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 #355,792 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