vouéevsvoûtéTell them apart

Which to use

“vouée” and “voûté” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#21,502
“vouée” frequency rank
#45,952
“voûté” frequency rank
67454
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vouée voûté
Definition Féminin singulier de voué. Qui présente une voûte, qui est recourbé.

Where the eye mixes vouée and voûté

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vouée (CVVVV) and voûté (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
vouée
5 ch
voûté

Why the eye confuses vouée with voûté

A purely visual mix-up. vouée (\vwe\) and voûté (\vu.te\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67454, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vouée is recorded at frequency rank #21,502, classified as anadj, pronounced \vwe\. voûté is at rank #45,952, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vu.te\.

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 67454, this pair ranks #63,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vouée vs voûté

Shared letters: ové. Private to "vouée": eu. Private to "voûté": tû.

"vouée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV  ·  "voûté" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vouée" for "voûté" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\vwe\ versus \vu.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "vouée" or "voûté"?
"vouée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,502 in our French list, against #45,952 for "voûté". 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 "vouée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voûté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vouée" and "voûté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voûté vs voûtée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #63,399 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