affilévsaffiliésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#46,560
“affilé” frequency rank
#16,796
“affiliés” frequency rank
63356
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature affilé affiliés
Definition Qui a le tranchant fin, aiguisé. Masculin pluriel de affilié.

Where the eye mixes affilé and affiliés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. affilé runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against affiliés's 8 (VCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
affilé
8 ch
affiliés

Why the eye confuses affilé with affiliés

A purely visual mix-up. affilé (\a.fi.le\) and affiliés (\a.fi.lje\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63356, 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\. affiliés is at rank #16,796, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.fi.lje\.

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 63356, this pair ranks #82,356 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of affilé vs affiliés

Shared letters: afilé. Private to "affilé": -. Private to "affiliés": s.

"affilé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "affiliés" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "affilé" for "affiliés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.fi.le\ versus \a.fi.lje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "affilé" or "affiliés"?
"affiliés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,796 in our French list, against #46,560 for "affilé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "affilé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "affiliés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #82,356 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "affilé" and "affiliés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "affable vs affilé". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #82,356 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