volavsvolesTell them apart

Quick tell: vola is a verb, voles is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vola” is a verb and “voles” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,375
“vola” frequency rank
#36,652
“voles” frequency rank
82027
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vola voles
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe voler. Pluriel de vole.

Where the eye mixes vola and voles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vola runs 4 letters (CVCV) against voles's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
vola
5 ch
voles

Look-alike desk: vola vs voles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vola is \vɔ.la\ while voles is \vɔl\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82027, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vola is recorded at frequency rank #45,375, classified as averb, pronounced \vɔ.la\. voles is at rank #36,652, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vɔl\.

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 82027, this pair ranks #17,592 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vola vs voles

Shared letters: lov. Private to "vola": a. Private to "voles": es.

"vola" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "voles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vola ← ovla · vloa · voal · volla · vvola
  • voles ← ovles · vloes · voels · voless · volles · volse · vvoles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vola" and "voles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vola" is a verb and "voles" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vola" or "voles"?
"voles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,652 in our French list, against #45,375 for "vola". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "vola" and "voles" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vola" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,592 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vola" and "voles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vlan vs vola". 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 #17,592 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