veufvsveufsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,134
“veuf” frequency rank
#45,941
“veufs” frequency rank
68075
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veuf veufs
Definition Qui est privé de. Masculin pluriel de veuf.

Same sound, different letters: veuf vs veufs

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. veuf runs 4 letters (CVVC) against veufs's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
veuf
5 ch
veufs

Homophone desk: veuf vs veufs

This is the hard kind. veuf and veufs are pronounced identically (\vœf\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “veuf” sits inside “veufs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68075, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

veuf is recorded at frequency rank #22,134, classified as anadj, pronounced \vœf\. veufs is at rank #45,941, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vœf\.

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 68075, this pair ranks #60,691 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of veuf vs veufs

Shared letters: efuv. Private to "veuf": -. Private to "veufs": s.

"veuf" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "veufs" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veufevuf · vefu · veuff · vuef · vveuf
  • veufsevufs · vefus · veuffs · veufss · veusf · vuefs · vveufs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "veuf" for "veufs" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\vœf\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "veuf" or "veufs"?
"veuf" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,134 in our French list, against #45,941 for "veufs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "veuf" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "veufs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,691 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veuf" and "veufs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ves vs veufs". 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 #60,691 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