violevsvoteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,489
“viole” frequency rank
#1,128
“vote” frequency rank
14617
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature viole vote
Definition Instrument de musique à six ou sept cordes, dont on joue avec un archet. Opinion exprimée, suffrage donné dans un corps politique, dans une assemblée délibérante, dans un collège électoral, dans une compagnie.

Where the eye mixes viole and vote

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

5 ch
viole
4 ch
vote

Visual trap between viole and vote

A purely visual mix-up. viole (\vjɔl\) and vote (\vɔt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14617, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

viole is recorded at frequency rank #13,489, classified as anoun, pronounced \vjɔl\. vote is at rank #1,128, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vɔt\.

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 14617, this pair ranks #395,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of viole vs vote

Shared letters: eov. Private to "viole": il. Private to "vote": t.

"viole" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "vote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • violeivole · viloe · vioel · violle · vviole
  • voteovte · voet · votte · vtoe · vvote

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "viole" and "vote" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\vjɔl\ versus \vɔt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "viole" or "vote" show up more?
"vote" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,128 in our French list, against #13,489 for "viole". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "viole" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vote" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "viole" and "vote" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vial vs viole". 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 #395,902 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