voirvsvoléWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#107
“voir” frequency rank
#4,632
“volé” frequency rank
4739
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voir volé
Definition Percevoir l’image des objets par l’organe de la vue. Participe passé masculin singulier de voler.

Where the eye mixes voir and volé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
voir
4 ch
volé

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. voir (\vwaʁ\) and volé (\vɔ.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4739, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voir is recorded at frequency rank #107, classified as averb, pronounced \vwaʁ\. volé is at rank #4,632, tagged as averb, pronounced \vɔ.le\.

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 4739, this pair ranks #430,824 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of voir vs volé

Shared letters: ov. Private to "voir": ir. Private to "volé": .

"voir" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "volé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voirovir · vior · voirr · vori · vvoir

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "voir" and "volé" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\vwaʁ\ versus \vɔ.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "voir" or "volé"?
"voir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #107 in our French list, against #4,632 for "volé". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "voir" and "volé". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "volé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #430,824 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voir" and "volé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "volé 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list