vincevsvireWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#18,905
“vince” frequency rank
#9,094
“vire” frequency rank
27999
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vince vire
Definition Gagner. Étroite plate-forme ou corniche sur les flancs d’une paroi rocheuse, sentier serpentant le long d’une montagne.

Where the eye mixes vince and vire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
vince
4 ch
vire

Visual trap between vince and vire

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vince is \ˈβin.ʧe\ while vire is \viʁ\. 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 27999, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vince is recorded at frequency rank #18,905, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈβin.ʧe\. vire is at rank #9,094, tagged as anoun, pronounced \viʁ\.

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 27999, this pair ranks #325,505 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vince vs vire

Shared letters: eiv. Private to "vince": cn. Private to "vire": r.

"vince" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "vire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vinceivnce · vicne · vincce · vinec · vinnce · vnice · vvince
  • virevrie

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vince" and "vire" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vince" is a verb and "vire" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vince" vs "vire" - which ranks higher?
"vire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,094 in our French list, against #18,905 for "vince". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "vince" and "vire" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vince" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #325,505 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vince" and "vire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Venice vs vince". 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 #325,505 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