vacancevsvacantTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,381
“vacance” frequency rank
#20,598
“vacant” frequency rank
34979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vacance vacant
Definition État d'une charge, d'une dignité, d'un poste vacant. Qui n’est pas occupé ou qui est à remplir, en parlant des maisons, lieux et places qui ne sont pas occupés.

Where the eye mixes vacance and vacant

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. vacance runs 7 letters (CVCVCCV) against vacant's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
vacance
6 ch
vacant

Visual trap between vacance and vacant

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vacance is \va.kɑ̃s\ while vacant is \va.kɑ̃\. 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 34979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vacance is recorded at frequency rank #14,381, classified as anoun, pronounced \va.kɑ̃s\. vacant is at rank #20,598, tagged as anadj, pronounced \va.kɑ̃\.

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 34979, this pair ranks #280,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vacance vs vacant

Shared letters: acnv. Private to "vacance": e. Private to "vacant": t.

"vacance" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "vacant" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vacance ← avcance · vaacnce · vacacne · vacancce · vacanec · vacannce · vaccance · vacnace
  • vacant ← avcant · vaacnt · vacannt · vacantt · vacatn · vaccant · vacnat · vcaant

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vacance" and "vacant" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vacance" is a noun and "vacant" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vacance" vs "vacant" - which ranks higher?
"vacance" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,381 in our French list, against #20,598 for "vacant". 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 "vacance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vacant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #280,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vacance" and "vacant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vacant vs vacante". 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 #280,025 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