elles
\ɛl\
The verdict
“elles” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #176 in French word frequency and used as a pronoun.
- #176
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel féminin sujet, pour parler d’un groupe de femmes, d’animaux ou de choses grammaticalement féminines.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | elles |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Pronoun |
| IPA | \ɛl\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #176 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “elles” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for elles is 5 letters long, classified as a pronoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɛl\. Corpus data places it at rank #176 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel féminin sujet, pour parler d’un groupe de femmes, d’animaux ou de choses grammaticalement féminines.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for elles, with forms such as "elels", "eles", and "elless". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "els", "êtes", "élus", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is elles, spelled E-L-L-E-S.
Definition
- 1Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel féminin sujet, pour parler d’un groupe de femmes, d’animaux ou de choses grammaticalement féminines.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elels,eles,elless,ellse,leles
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of elles - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "elles"?
What does "elles" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "elles"?
How do you pronounce "elles"?
What language does "elles" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “elles”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is E-L-L-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɛl\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “els” - see the side-by-side comparison. elles vs els
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.