vouliezvsvoulueTell them apart

Quick tell: vouliez is a verb, voulue is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vouliez” is a verb and “voulue” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,368
“vouliez” frequency rank
#14,177
“voulue” frequency rank
32545
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vouliez voulue
Definition Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de vouloir. Féminin singulier de voulu.

Where the eye mixes vouliez and voulue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. vouliez runs 7 letters (CVVCVVC) against voulue's 6 (CVVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
vouliez
6 ch
voulue

Visual trap between vouliez and voulue

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vouliez is \vu.lje\ while voulue is \vu.ly\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32545, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vouliez is recorded at frequency rank #18,368, classified as averb, pronounced \vu.lje\. voulue is at rank #14,177, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vu.ly\.

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 32545, this pair ranks #296,571 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vouliez vs voulue

Shared letters: elouv. Private to "vouliez": iz. Private to "voulue": -.

"vouliez" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "voulue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vouliez ← ovuliez · voluiez · vouilez · vouleiz · vouliezz · voulize · voulliez · vuoliez
  • voulue ← ovulue · voluue · vouleu · voullue · vouule · vuolue · vvoulue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vouliez" for "voulue" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vouliez" is a verb and "voulue" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vouliez" vs "voulue" - which ranks higher?
"voulue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,177 in our French list, against #18,368 for "vouliez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vouliez" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voulue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #296,571 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vouliez" and "voulue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voulue 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 #296,571 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