vengévsveuveWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: vengé is a verb, veuve is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vengé” is a verb and “veuve” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,121
“vengé” frequency rank
#5,621
“veuve” frequency rank
42742
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vengé veuve
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de venger. Ancienne épouse dont le/la conjoint(e) est décédé(e) et qui ne s’est pas remariée.

Where the eye mixes vengé and veuve

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

5 ch
vengé
5 ch
veuve

Visual trap between vengé and veuve

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vengé is \vɑ̃.ʒe\ while veuve is \vœv\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vengé is recorded at frequency rank #37,121, classified as averb, pronounced \vɑ̃.ʒe\. veuve is at rank #5,621, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vœv\.

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 42742, this pair ranks #223,273 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vengé vs veuve

Shared letters: ev. Private to "vengé": gné. Private to "veuve": u.

"vengé" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "veuve" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veuve ← evuve · veuev · veuvve · vevue · vueve · vveuve

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vengé" for "veuve" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vengé" is a verb and "veuve" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vengé" or "veuve"?
"veuve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,621 in our French list, against #37,121 for "vengé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vengé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "veuve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #223,273 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vengé" and "veuve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vengé vs veniez". 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 #223,273 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