chilienvschiliensTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,146
“chilien” frequency rank
#39,705
“chiliens” frequency rank
63851
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chilien chiliens
Definition Propre ou relatif au Chili, État d'Amérique du Sud. Pluriel de chilien.

Same sound, different letters: chilien vs chiliens

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. chilien runs 7 letters (CCVCVVC) against chiliens's 8 (CCVCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
chilien
8 ch
chiliens

Homophone desk: chilien vs chiliens

This is the hard kind. chilien and chiliens are pronounced identically (\ʃi.ljɛ̃\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “chilien” sits inside “chiliens”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63851, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chilien is recorded at frequency rank #24,146, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʃi.ljɛ̃\. chiliens is at rank #39,705, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʃi.ljɛ̃\.

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 63851, this pair ranks #79,898 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chilien vs chiliens

Shared letters: cehiln. Private to "chilien": -. Private to "chiliens": s.

"chilien" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC  ·  "chiliens" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chilien ← cchilien · chhilien · chiilen · chilein · chilienn · chiline · chillien · chliien
  • chiliens ← cchiliens · chhiliens · chiilens · chileins · chilienns · chilienss · chiliesn · chilines

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chilien" and "chiliens" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʃi.ljɛ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "chilien" or "chiliens" show up more?
"chilien" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,146 in our French list, against #39,705 for "chiliens". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "chilien" / "chiliens". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chilien" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chiliens" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,898 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chilien" and "chiliens" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chilienne vs chiliens". 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 #79,898 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