volesvsVossConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#36,652
“voles” frequency rank
#47,682
“Voss” frequency rank
84334
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voles Voss
Definition Pluriel de vole. Nom de famille.

Letter map: voles vs Voss

Shared letters muted; letters that set voles and Voss apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. voles runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against Voss's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
voles
4 ch
Voss

Part-of-speech tell for voles / Voss

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: voles is anoun and Vossaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84334, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voles is recorded at frequency rank #36,652, classified as anoun, pronounced \vɔl\. Voss is at rank #47,682, tagged as aname.

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 84334, this pair ranks #13,187 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of voles vs Voss

Shared letters: osv. Private to "voles": el. Private to "Voss": -.

"voles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Voss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voles ← ovles · vloes · voels · voless · volles · volse · vvoles
  • Voss ← ovss · vsos · vvoss

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "voles" and "Voss" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "voles" is a noun and "Voss" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "voles" or "Voss" show up more?
"voles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,652 in our French list, against #47,682 for "Voss". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "voles" vs "Voss" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Voss" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,187 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voles" and "Voss" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Voss 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 #13,187 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