vautvsvoûtéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: vaut is a verb, voûté is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vaut” is a verb and “voûté” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,014
“vaut” frequency rank
#45,952
“voûté” frequency rank
46966
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vaut voûté
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de valoir. Qui présente une voûte, qui est recourbé.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set vaut and voûté apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
vaut
5 ch
voûté

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vaut is \vo\ while voûté is \vu.te\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46966, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vaut is recorded at frequency rank #1,014, classified as averb, pronounced \vo\. voûté is at rank #45,952, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vu.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 46966, this pair ranks #190,649 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vaut vs voûté

Shared letters: tv. Private to "vaut": au. Private to "voûté": oéû.

"vaut" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "voûté" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vautavut · vatu · vautt · vuat · vvaut

Frequency comparison

vaut#1,014
voûté#45,952

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vaut" and "voûté" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vaut" is a verb and "voûté" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vaut" or "voûté"?
"vaut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,014 in our French list, against #45,952 for "voûté". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering vaut vs voûté

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “vaut”; for an adjective, it's “voûté”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “vaut” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list