veilvsvoidTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,410
“veil” frequency rank
#42,683
“void” frequency rank
66093
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veil void
Definition Voile. Fromage au lait de vache à pâte molle à croûte lavée de la Meuse.

Where the eye mixes veil and void

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. veil and void follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
veil
4 ch
void

Look-alike desk: veil vs void

A purely visual mix-up. veil (\veɪl\) and void (\vwa\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66093, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

veil is recorded at frequency rank #23,410, classified as anoun, pronounced \veɪl\. void is at rank #42,683, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vwa\.

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 66093, this pair ranks #69,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of veil vs void

Shared letters: iv. Private to "veil": el. Private to "void": do.

"veil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "void" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veil ← veill · veli · vveil
  • void ← ovid · viod · vodi · voidd · vvoid

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "veil" for "void" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\veɪl\ versus \vwa\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "veil" or "void"?
"veil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,410 in our French list, against #42,683 for "void". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "veil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "void" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veil" and "void" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "viv vs void". 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 #69,332 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