vouluevsvoulusWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#14,177
“voulue” frequency rank
#32,237
“voulus” frequency rank
46414
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voulue voulus
Definition Féminin singulier de voulu. Masculin pluriel de voulu.

Same sound, different letters: voulue vs voulus

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. voulue (CVVCVV) and voulus (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
voulue
6 ch
voulus

Ear matches; page differs - voulue and voulus

This is the hard kind. voulue and voulus are pronounced identically (\vu.ly\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “voulue” becomes s in “voulus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46414, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voulue is recorded at frequency rank #14,177, classified as anadj, pronounced \vu.ly\. voulus is at rank #32,237, 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 46414, this pair ranks #195,134 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of voulue vs voulus

Shared letters: louv. Private to "voulue": e. Private to "voulus": s.

"voulue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "voulus" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voulue ← ovulue · voluue · vouleu · voullue · vouule · vuolue · vvoulue
  • voulus ← ovulus · voluus · voullus · voulsu · vouluss · vouuls · vuolus · vvoulus

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "voulue" for "voulus" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\vu.ly\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "voulue" or "voulus"?
"voulue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,177 in our French list, against #32,237 for "voulus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voulue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voulus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #195,134 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voulue" and "voulus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vouées vs voulus". 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 #195,134 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