Français homophones

il/ile/ils/isle/isles

"il" is a pronoun; "ile" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #101 of 9,139 French groups.

Data vintage 2026-05-06

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "il" arrives as a pronoun, while "ile" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

Shared stem "il" then splits - "il" (2 letters) vs "ile" (3).
Shared stem "il" then splits - "il" (2 letters) vs "ils" (3).
No shared spelling stem: "il" is 2 letters, "isle" is 4; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "il" is 2 letters, "isles" is 5; only the sound ties them.
Single-letter fork: "ile" keeps e, "ils" writes s at letter 3.
No shared spelling stem: "ile" is 3 letters, "isle" is 4; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "ile" is 3 letters, "isles" is 5; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "ils" is 3 letters, "isle" is 4; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "ils" is 3 letters, "isles" is 5; only the sound ties them.
Shared stem "isle" then splits - "isle" (4 letters) vs "isles" (5).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across il, ile, ils, isle, isles: il. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

il
2 letters · 1 vowels · shape VC
Inventory il · no private letters vs siblings
ile
3 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCV
Inventory eil · private e
ils
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape VCC
Inventory ils · private s
isle
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCCV
Inventory eils · private es
isles
5 letters · 2 vowels · shape VCCVC
Inventory eils · private es

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "il" when you mean: Pronom de la troisième personne du singulier masculin (utilisé exclusivement en tant que sujet). Désigne une personne, un animal ou une c…
Write "ile" when you mean: Espace de terre entouré d’eau de tous côtés.
Write "ils" when you mean: Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel sujet, quand on parle d’un groupe d’hommes et de femmes ou de choses grammaticalement…
Write "isle" when you mean: Île.
Write "isles" when you mean: Pluriel de isle.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

isle ← isel · islle · issle · sile
isles ← ilses · isels · isless · islles · islse · issles

Each spelling

pronoun · /\il\/ · #18 frequency

Pronom de la troisième personne du singulier masculin (utilisé exclusivement en tant que sujet). Désigne une personne, un animal ou une chose dont le genre est masculin.

ile

noun · /\il\/ · #3,925 frequency

Espace de terre entouré d’eau de tous côtés.

ils

pronoun · /\il\/ · #54 frequency

Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel sujet, quand on parle d’un groupe d’hommes et de femmes ou de choses grammaticalement masculines et féminines.

isle

noun · /\il\/ · #11,988 frequency

Île.

isles

noun · /\il\/ · #36,912 frequency

Pluriel de isle.