visvsVossWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#993
“vis” frequency rank
#47,682
“Voss” frequency rank
48675
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vis Voss
Definition 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. Nom de famille.

Letter map: vis vs Voss

Shared letters muted; letters that set vis and Voss apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
vis
4 ch
Voss

Part-of-speech tell for vis / Voss

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: vis is anoun and Vossaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48675, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vis is recorded at frequency rank #993, classified as anoun, pronounced \vis\. Voss is at rank #47,682, tagged as aname.

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 48675, this pair ranks #176,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vis vs Voss

Shared letters: sv. Private to "vis": i. Private to "Voss": o.

"vis" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "Voss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Vossovss · vsos · vvoss

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vis" for "Voss" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vis" is a noun and "Voss" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vis" or "Voss"?
"vis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #993 in our French list, against #47,682 for "Voss". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "vis" vs "Voss" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Voss" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #176,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vis" and "Voss" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Voss vs voy". 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 #176,910 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