adulévsailéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#45,415
“adulé” frequency rank
#38,126
“ailé” frequency rank
83541
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature adulé ailé
Definition Qualifie une personne ou une entité flattée avec excès. Qui possède des ailes.

Where the eye mixes adulé and ailé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. adulé runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against ailé's 4 (VVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
adulé
4 ch
ailé

Look-alike desk: adulé vs ailé

A purely visual mix-up. adulé (\a.dy.le\) and ailé (\ɛ.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

adulé is recorded at frequency rank #45,415, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.dy.le\. ailé is at rank #38,126, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ.le\.

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 83541, this pair ranks #14,627 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of adulé vs ailé

Shared letters: alé. Private to "adulé": du. Private to "ailé": i.

"adulé" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "ailé" · 4 letters · shape VVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "adulé" for "ailé" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.dy.le\ versus \ɛ.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "adulé" or "ailé"?
"ailé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,126 in our French list, against #45,415 for "adulé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "adulé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ailé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,627 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "adulé" and "ailé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adulé vs Aure". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #14,627 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