voievsvoixWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#781
“voie” frequency rank
#499
“voix” frequency rank
1280
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voie voix
Definition Partie de la chaussée dédiée et suffisante pour permettre le déroulement d’une file d’automobiles autres que des motocycles. Ensemble de sons produits par les cordes vocales.

Same sound, different letters: voie vs voix

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch
voie
4 ch
voix

Ear matches; page differs - voie and voix

This is the hard kind. voie and voix are pronounced identically (\vwa\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “voie” becomes x in “voix”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1280, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voie is recorded at frequency rank #781, classified as anoun, pronounced \vwa\. voix is at rank #499, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vwa\.

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 1280, this pair ranks #438,324 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of voie vs voix

Shared letters: iov. Private to "voie": e. Private to "voix": x.

"voie" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "voix" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voieovie · vioe · voei · vvoie
  • voixovix · viox · voixx · voxi · vvoix

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "voie" for "voix" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\vwa\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "voie" vs "voix" - which ranks higher?
"voix" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #499 in our French list, against #781 for "voie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "voie" / "voix". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voix" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #438,324 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voie" and "voix" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "viv vs voie". 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 #438,324 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