vaisvsVossWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: vais is a verb, Voss is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vais” is a verb and “Voss” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#219
“vais” frequency rank
#47,682
“Voss” frequency rank
47901
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vais Voss
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de aller. Nom de famille.

Letter map: vais vs Voss

Shared letters muted; letters that set vais and Voss apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
vais
4 ch
Voss

Grammar separator: vais vs Voss

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vais is averb and Vossaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47901, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vais is recorded at frequency rank #219, classified as averb, pronounced \vɛ\. Voss is at rank #47,682, tagged as aname.

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 47901, this pair ranks #183,251 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vais vs Voss

Shared letters: sv. Private to "vais": ai. Private to "Voss": o.

"vais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Voss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vaisvaiss · vasi · vias · vvais
  • Vossovss · vsos · vvoss

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vais" for "Voss" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vais" is a verb and "Voss" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "vais" or "Voss" show up more?
"vais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #219 in our French list, against #47,682 for "Voss". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "vais" and "Voss". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Voss" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #183,251 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vais" and "Voss" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Voss vs voy". 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 #183,251 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