vouervsvoyeurWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#43,728
“vouer” frequency rank
#25,168
“voyeur” frequency rank
68896
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vouer voyeur
Definition Promettre par vœu. Celui qui aime regarder les gens, observer les choses sans intervenir.

Where the eye mixes vouer and voyeur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. vouer runs 5 letters (CVVVC) against voyeur's 6 (CVVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
vouer
6 ch
voyeur

Look-alike desk: vouer vs voyeur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vouer is \vwe\ while voyeur is \vwa.jœʁ\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68896, 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\. voyeur is at rank #25,168, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vwa.jœʁ\.

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 68896, this pair ranks #57,297 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vouer vs voyeur

Shared letters: eoruv. Private to "vouer": -. Private to "voyeur": y.

"vouer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "voyeur" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vouerovuer · voeur · vouerr · voure · vuoer · vvouer
  • voyeurovyeur · voeyur · voyeru · voyeurr · voyuer · voyyeur · vvoyeur · vyoeur

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vouer" and "voyeur" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vouer" is a verb and "voyeur" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "vouer" or "voyeur" show up more?
"voyeur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,168 in our French list, against #43,728 for "vouer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "vouer" and "voyeur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vouer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voyeur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,297 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vouer" and "voyeur" 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 #57,297 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