Which to use
“voice” and “voile” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,881
- “voice” frequency rank
- #2,653
- “voile” frequency rank
- 14534
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | voice | voile |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Voix. | Large pièce de tissu assurant la propulsion des navires ou des moulins, par la force du vent. |
Where the eye mixes voice and voile
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. voice and voile follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: voice vs voile
A purely visual mix-up. voice (\vɔɪs\) and voile (\vwal\) 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 a single letter - c in “voice” becomes l in “voile”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14534, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
voice is recorded at frequency rank #11,881, classified as anoun, pronounced \vɔɪs\. voile is at rank #2,653, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vwal\.
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 14534, this pair ranks #396,251 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of voice vs voile
Shared letters: eiov. Private to "voice": c. Private to "voile": l.
"voice" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "voile" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "voice" for "voile" ever safe?
Frequency check: "voice" vs "voile" - which ranks higher?
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 "voice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "voile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #396,251 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "voice" and "voile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voice vs voûté". 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 #396,251 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.