aidéesvsaillesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#41,633
“aidées” frequency rank
#25,192
“ailles” frequency rank
66825
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aidées ailles
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe aider. Deuxième personne du singulier du subjonctif présent du verbe aller.

Where the eye mixes aidées and ailles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. aidées (VVCVVC) and ailles (VVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
aidées
6 ch
ailles

Visual trap between aidées and ailles

A purely visual mix-up. aidées (\ɛ.de\) and ailles (\aj\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66825, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aidées is recorded at frequency rank #41,633, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ.de\. ailles is at rank #25,192, tagged as averb, pronounced \aj\.

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 66825, this pair ranks #66,090 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of aidées vs ailles

Shared letters: aeis. Private to "aidées": dé. Private to "ailles": l.

"aidées" · 6 letters · shape VVCVVC  ·  "ailles" · 6 letters · shape VVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ailles ← ailels · ailless · aillse · aliles · ialles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "aidées" and "ailles" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ.de\ versus \aj\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "aidées" or "ailles" show up more?
"ailles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,192 in our French list, against #41,633 for "aidées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "aidées" and "ailles" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "aidées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ailles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #66,090 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aidées" and "ailles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "agitées vs aidées". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #66,090 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