violervsviolsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7,918
“violer” frequency rank
#11,324
“viols” frequency rank
19242
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature violer viols
Definition Enfreindre, porter atteinte à, attenter à. Pluriel de viol.

Where the eye mixes violer and viols

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
violer
5 ch
viols

Visual trap between violer and viols

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: violer is \vjɔ.le\ while viols is \vjɔl\. 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 19242, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

violer is recorded at frequency rank #7,918, classified as averb, pronounced \vjɔ.le\. viols is at rank #11,324, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vjɔl\.

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 19242, this pair ranks #374,235 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of violer vs viols

Shared letters: ilov. Private to "violer": er. Private to "viols": s.

"violer" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "viols" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • violerivoler · viloer · vioelr · violerr · violler · violre · vvioler
  • violsivols · vilos · violls · violss · viosl · voils · vviols

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "violer" and "viols" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "violer" is a verb and "viols" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "violer" or "viols"?
"violer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,918 in our French list, against #11,324 for "viols". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "violer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "viols" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #374,235 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "violer" and "viols" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vial vs viols". 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 #374,235 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