veauxvsvécusWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#22,729
“veaux” frequency rank
#24,439
“vécus” frequency rank
47168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veaux vécus
Definition Pluriel de veau. Masculin pluriel de vécu.

Where the eye mixes veaux and vécus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. veaux (CVVVC) and vécus (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
veaux
5 ch
vécus

Visual trap between veaux and vécus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: veaux is \vo\ while vécus is \ve.ky\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

veaux is recorded at frequency rank #22,729, classified as anoun, pronounced \vo\. vécus is at rank #24,439, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ve.ky\.

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 47168, this pair ranks #189,040 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of veaux vs vécus

Shared letters: uv. Private to "veaux": aex. Private to "vécus": csé.

"veaux" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "vécus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veauxevaux · veauxx · veaxu · veuax · vveaux

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "veaux" for "vécus" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "veaux" is a noun and "vécus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "veaux" or "vécus" show up more?
"veaux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,729 in our French list, against #24,439 for "vécus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "veaux" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vécus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,040 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veaux" and "vécus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "veaux vs Viau". 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 #189,040 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