vergnevsviergeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#42,113
“vergne” frequency rank
#2,552
“vierge” frequency rank
44665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vergne vierge
Definition Aulne. Qualifie une personne qui n’a pas encore eu de relations sexuelles ou un animal qui ne s’est pas encore accouplé.

Where the eye mixes vergne and vierge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. vergne (CVCCCV) and vierge (CVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
vergne
6 ch
vierge

Look-alike desk: vergne vs vierge

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vergne is \vɛʁɲ\ while vierge is \vjɛʁʒ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 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 44665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vergne is recorded at frequency rank #42,113, classified as anoun, pronounced \vɛʁɲ\. vierge is at rank #2,552, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vjɛʁʒ\.

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 44665, this pair ranks #208,742 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vergne vs vierge

Shared letters: egrv. Private to "vergne": n. Private to "vierge": i.

"vergne" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "vierge" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vergne ← evrgne · vegrne · vergen · verggne · vergnne · vernge · verrgne · vregne
  • vierge ← iverge · veirge · viegre · viereg · viergge · vierrge · virege · vvierge

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vergne" and "vierge" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vergne" is a noun and "vierge" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "vergne" or "vierge" show up more?
"vierge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,552 in our French list, against #42,113 for "vergne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vergne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vierge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #208,742 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vergne" and "vierge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vergne vs vern". 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 #208,742 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