vaudouvsvautourTell them apart

Which to use

“vaudou” and “vautour” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#27,654
“vaudou” frequency rank
#30,418
“vautour” frequency rank
58072
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vaudou vautour
Definition Religion animiste originaire de l’ancien royaume du Dahomey, répandue au Bénin et au Togo, aux Antilles et en Amérique latine, principalement. Oiseau rapace charognard, à tête et à col nus.

Where the eye mixes vaudou and vautour

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

6 ch
vaudou
7 ch
vautour

Visual trap between vaudou and vautour

A purely visual mix-up. vaudou (\vo.du\) and vautour (\vo.tuʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58072, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vaudou is recorded at frequency rank #27,654, classified as anoun, pronounced \vo.du\. vautour is at rank #30,418, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vo.tuʁ\.

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 58072, this pair ranks #111,207 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vaudou vs vautour

Shared letters: aouv. Private to "vaudou": d. Private to "vautour": rt.

"vaudou" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "vautour" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vaudou ← avudou · vaduou · vauddou · vauduo · vauodu · vuadou · vvaudou
  • vautour ← avutour · vatuour · vauotur · vautoru · vautourr · vauttour · vautuor · vuatour

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vaudou" and "vautour" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\vo.du\ versus \vo.tuʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "vaudou" or "vautour" show up more?
"vaudou" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,654 in our French list, against #30,418 for "vautour". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "vaudou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vautour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #111,207 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vaudou" and "vautour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vador vs vaudou". 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 #111,207 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