Which to use
“vouer” is a verb and “voyer” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #43,728
- “vouer” frequency rank
- #34,361
- “voyer” frequency rank
- 78089
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | vouer | voyer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Promettre par vœu. | Relatif à la voirie. |
Where the eye mixes vouer and voyer
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. vouer and voyer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between vouer and voyer
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vouer is \vwe\ while voyer is \vwa.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - u in “vouer” becomes y in “voyer”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78089, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
vouer is recorded at frequency rank #43,728, classified as averb, pronounced \vwe\. voyer is at rank #34,361, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vwa.je\.
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 78089, this pair ranks #26,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of vouer vs voyer
Shared letters: eorv. Private to "vouer": u. Private to "voyer": y.
"vouer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC · "voyer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "vouer" for "voyer" ever safe?
Frequency check: "vouer" vs "voyer" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "vouer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "voyer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #26,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "vouer" and "voyer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vouer vs voûtée". 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 #26,658 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.