Which to use
“veut” is a verb and “voeux” is a typographic variant - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #199
- “veut” frequency rank
- #10,969
- “voeux” frequency rank
- 11168
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | veut | voeux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier à l’indicatif présent de vouloir. | Orthographe par contrainte typographique de vœux. |
Same sound, different letters: veut vs voeux
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. veut runs 4 letters (CVVC) against voeux's 5 (CVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: veut vs voeux
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: veut and voeux carry the same recorded pronunciation, \vø\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other atypographic variant, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
veut is recorded at frequency rank #199, classified as averb, pronounced \vø\. voeux is at rank #10,969, tagged as atypographic variant, pronounced [vø].
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 11168, this pair ranks #410,206 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of veut vs voeux
Shared letters: euv. Private to "veut": t. Private to "voeux": ox.
"veut" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "voeux" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "veut" for "voeux" ever safe?
Which is more common, "veut" or "voeux"?
What to do next
"veut" and "voeux" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "veut" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "voeux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #410,206 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "veut" and "voeux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voeux vs voui". 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 #410,206 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.