volavsvoltWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#45,375
“vola” frequency rank
#33,072
“volt” frequency rank
78447
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vola volt
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe voler. Unité de mesure de force électromotrice et de tension électrique du Système international, égale à la différence de potentiel entre deux points d’un conducteur transportant un courant d’un ampère quand la puissance dissipée entre ces deux points est d’un watt. Son symbole est V.

Where the eye mixes vola and volt

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

4 ch
vola
4 ch
volt

Visual trap between vola and volt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vola is \vɔ.la\ while volt is \vɔlt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “vola” becomes t in “volt”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78447, 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\. volt is at rank #33,072, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vɔlt\.

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 78447, this pair ranks #25,726 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vola vs volt

Shared letters: lov. Private to "vola": a. Private to "volt": t.

"vola" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "volt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • volaovla · vloa · voal · volla · vvola
  • voltovlt · vlot · vollt · voltt · votl · vvolt

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vola" and "volt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vola" is a verb and "volt" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vola" vs "volt" - which ranks higher?
"volt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,072 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

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vola" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "volt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,726 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vola" and "volt" 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 #25,726 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