veufvsvouiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: veuf is a adjective, voui is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“veuf” is an adjective and “voui” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,134
“veuf” frequency rank
#45,950
“voui” frequency rank
68084
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veuf voui
Definition Qui est privé de. Oui.

Where the eye mixes veuf and voui

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

4 ch
veuf
4 ch
voui

Look-alike desk: veuf vs voui

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: veuf is \vœf\ while voui is \vwi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68084, 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\. voui is at rank #45,950, tagged as anadv, pronounced \vwi\.

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 68084, this pair ranks #60,635 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of veuf vs voui

Shared letters: uv. Private to "veuf": ef. Private to "voui": io.

"veuf" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "voui" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veuf ← evuf · vefu · veuff · vuef · vveuf
  • voui ← ovui · voiu · vuoi · vvoui

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "veuf" and "voui" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "veuf" is an adjective and "voui" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "veuf" or "voui" show up more?
"veuf" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,134 in our French list, against #45,950 for "voui". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "veuf" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,635 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veuf" and "voui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voui vs voy". 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 #60,635 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