cellevsceluiWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: celle is a noun, celui is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“celle” is a noun and “celui” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#254
“celle” frequency rank
#209
“celui” frequency rank
463
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature celle celui
Definition Compartiment des bains romains. Utilisé pour remplacer la personne ou la chose dont on parle.

Where the eye mixes celle and celui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
celle
5 ch
celui

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: celle is \sɛl\ while celui is \sə.lɥi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 463, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

celle is recorded at frequency rank #254, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛl\. celui is at rank #209, tagged as apron, pronounced \sə.lɥi\.

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 463, this pair ranks #439,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of celle vs celui

Shared letters: cel. Private to "celle": -. Private to "celui": iu.

"celle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "celui" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • celleccelle · cele · celel · clele · eclle
  • celuiccelui · celiu · cellui · ceuli · cleui · eclui

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "celle" and "celui" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "celle" is a noun and "celui" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "celle" or "celui"?
"celui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #209 in our French list, against #254 for "celle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "celle" and "celui". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "celle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "celui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #439,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "celle" and "celui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cédille vs celle". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list