conseillervsconseillesTell them apart

Quick tell: conseiller is a noun, conseilles is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“conseiller” is a noun and “conseilles” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,623
“conseiller” frequency rank
#39,720
“conseilles” frequency rank
41343
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature conseiller conseilles
Definition Celui qui conseille quelqu’un, qui donne des avis. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de conseiller.

Where the eye mixes conseiller and conseilles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. conseiller and conseilles follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

10 ch
conseiller
10 ch
conseilles

Visual trap between conseiller and conseilles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: conseiller is \kɔ̃.sɛ.je\ while conseilles is \kɔ̃.sɛj\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “conseiller” becomes s in “conseilles”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

conseiller is recorded at frequency rank #1,623, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃.sɛ.je\. conseilles is at rank #39,720, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.sɛj\.

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 41343, this pair ranks #233,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of conseiller vs conseilles

Shared letters: ceilnos. Private to "conseiller": r. Private to "conseilles": -.

"conseiller" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC  ·  "conseilles" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • conseiller ← cconseiller · cnoseiller · conesiller · connseiller · conseilelr · conseiler · conseillerr · conseillre
  • conseilles ← cconseilles · cnoseilles · conesilles · connseilles · conseilels · conseiles · conseilless · conseillse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "conseiller" for "conseilles" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "conseiller" is a noun and "conseilles" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "conseiller" or "conseilles" show up more?
"conseiller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,623 in our French list, against #39,720 for "conseilles". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "conseiller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "conseilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #233,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "conseiller" and "conseilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conseillères vs conseilles". 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 #233,789 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