Which to use
“voor” is a preposition and “voy” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,936
- “voor” frequency rank
- #48,860
- “voy” frequency rank
- 82796
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | voor | voy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Avant. | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif du verbe irrégulier ir (« aller »). |
Where the eye mixes voor and voy
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. voor runs 4 letters (CVVC) against voy's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between voor and voy
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: voor is \voːr\ while voy is \ˈboj\. 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 (preposition vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82796, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
voor is recorded at frequency rank #33,936, classified as aprep, pronounced \voːr\. voy is at rank #48,860, tagged as averb, pronounced \ˈboj\.
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 82796, this pair ranks #16,013 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of voor vs voy
Shared letters: ov. Private to "voor": r. Private to "voy": y.
"voor" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "voy" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- voor ← ovor · voorr · voro · vvoor
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "voor" and "voy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "voor" or "voy" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "voor" and "voy" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "voor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "voy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #16,013 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "voor" and "voy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "viv 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 #16,013 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.