voirevsvoueWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,464
“voire” frequency rank
#28,020
“voue” frequency rank
29484
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voire voue
Definition Et peut-être même ; et aussi. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de vouer.

Where the eye mixes voire and voue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
voire
4 ch
voue

Why the eye confuses voire with voue

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: voire is \vwaʁ\ while voue is \vu\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29484, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voire is recorded at frequency rank #1,464, classified as anadv, pronounced \vwaʁ\. voue is at rank #28,020, tagged as averb, pronounced \vu\.

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 29484, this pair ranks #316,400 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of voire vs voue

Shared letters: eov. Private to "voire": ir. Private to "voue": u.

"voire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "voue" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voireovire · viore · voier · voirre · vorie · vvoire
  • voueovue · voeu · vuoe · vvoue

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "voire" and "voue" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "voire" is an adverb and "voue" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "voire" or "voue" show up more?
"voire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,464 in our French list, against #28,020 for "voue". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "voire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #316,400 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voire" and "voue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voue 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 #316,400 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