Which to use
“affilé” is an adjective and “affilée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,560
- “affilé” frequency rank
- #13,100
- “affilée” frequency rank
- 59660
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | affilé | affilée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui a le tranchant fin, aiguisé. | Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe affiler. |
Same sound, different letters: affilé vs affilée
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. affilé runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against affilée's 7 (VCCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: affilé vs affilée
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: affilé and affilée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.fi.le\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “affilé” sits inside “affilée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59660, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
affilé is recorded at frequency rank #46,560, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.fi.le\. affilée is at rank #13,100, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.fi.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 59660, this pair ranks #101,908 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of affilé vs affilée
Shared letters: afilé. Private to "affilé": -. Private to "affilée": e.
"affilé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "affilée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "affilé" for "affilée" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "affilé" or "affilée" show up more?
What to do next
"affilé" and "affilée" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "affilé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "affilée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #101,908 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "affilé" and "affilée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "affable vs affilé". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #101,908 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.