vidavsvisWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#26,576
“vida” frequency rank
#993
“vis” frequency rank
27569
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vida vis
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de vider. Pièce mécanique formée d’un corps qui comporte un filet de forme hélicoïdale et une tête où une empreinte permet d’appliquer un couple ; il en résulte un double mouvement de rotation et de translation. En mécanique, elles sont souvent employées avec des écrous pour former des boulons.

Where the eye mixes vida and vis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
vida
3 ch
vis

Visual trap between vida and vis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vida is \vi.da\ while vis is \vis\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27569, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vida is recorded at frequency rank #26,576, classified as averb, pronounced \vi.da\. vis is at rank #993, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vis\.

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 27569, this pair ranks #328,132 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vida vs vis

Shared letters: iv. Private to "vida": ad. Private to "vis": s.

"vida" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "vis" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vidaivda · vdia · viad · vidda · vvida

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vida" for "vis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vida" is a verb and "vis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "vida" or "vis" show up more?
"vis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #993 in our French list, against #26,576 for "vida". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "vida" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #328,132 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vida" and "vis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vida vs vigan". 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 #328,132 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