variéevsvéritéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: variée is a adjective, vérité is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#17,587
“variée” frequency rank
#799
“vérité” frequency rank
18386
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature variée vérité
Definition Féminin singulier de varié. Caractère de ce qui est vrai, conformité d’un récit, d’une relation avec un fait, de ce que l’on dit avec ce que l’on pense.

Where the eye mixes variée and vérité

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. variée (CVCVVV) and vérité (CVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
variée
6 ch
vérité

Look-alike desk: variée vs vérité

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: variée is \va.ʁje\ while vérité is \ve.ʁi.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18386, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

variée is recorded at frequency rank #17,587, classified as anadj, pronounced \va.ʁje\. vérité is at rank #799, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ve.ʁi.te\.

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 18386, this pair ranks #378,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of variée vs vérité

Shared letters: irvé. Private to "variée": ae. Private to "vérité": t.

"variée" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV  ·  "vérité" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "variée" for "vérité" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "variée" is an adjective and "vérité" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "variée" or "vérité" show up more?
"vérité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #799 in our French list, against #17,587 for "variée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "variée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vérité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "variée" and "vérité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "varia vs variée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #378,591 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