virervsvoireTell them apart

Quick tell: virer is a verb, voire is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“virer” is a verb and “voire” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,715
“virer” frequency rank
#1,464
“voire” frequency rank
7179
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature virer voire
Definition Aller en tournant. Et peut-être même ; et aussi.

Where the eye mixes virer and voire

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

5 ch
virer
5 ch
voire

Why the eye confuses virer with voire

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: virer is \vi.ʁe\ while voire is \vwaʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7179, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

virer is recorded at frequency rank #5,715, classified as averb, pronounced \vi.ʁe\. voire is at rank #1,464, tagged as anadv, pronounced \vwaʁ\.

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 7179, this pair ranks #423,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of virer vs voire

Shared letters: eirv. Private to "virer": -. Private to "voire": o.

"virer" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "voire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • virerivrer · vierr · virerr · virre · virrer · vrier · vvirer
  • voireovire · viore · voier · voirre · vorie · vvoire

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "virer" and "voire" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "virer" is a verb and "voire" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "virer" or "voire" show up more?
"voire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,464 in our French list, against #5,715 for "virer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "virer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #423,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "virer" and "voire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vilar vs virer". 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 #423,953 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