cueillevscueilliConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#42,265
“cueille” frequency rank
#43,872
“cueilli” frequency rank
86137
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cueille cueilli
Definition Action de cueillir. Participe passé masculin singulier de cueillir.

Where the eye mixes cueille and cueilli

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. cueille and cueilli follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
cueille
7 ch
cueilli

Visual trap between cueille and cueilli

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cueille is \kœj\ while cueilli is \kœ.ji\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “cueille” becomes i in “cueilli”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86137, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cueille is recorded at frequency rank #42,265, classified as anoun, pronounced \kœj\. cueilli is at rank #43,872, tagged as averb, pronounced \kœ.ji\.

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 86137, this pair ranks #10,177 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cueille vs cueilli

Shared letters: ceilu. Private to "cueille": -. Private to "cueilli": -.

"cueille" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV  ·  "cueilli" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cueilleccueille · ceuille · cueile · cueilel · cuelile · cuielle · uceille
  • cueilliccueilli · ceuilli · cueili · cueilil · cuelili · cuielli · uceilli

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cueille" for "cueilli" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cueille" is a noun and "cueilli" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cueille" or "cueilli" show up more?
"cueille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,265 in our French list, against #43,872 for "cueilli". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cueille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cueilli" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,177 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cueille" and "cueilli" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cédille vs cueille". 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 #10,177 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