cueillevscueillirWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#42,265
“cueille” frequency rank
#19,250
“cueillir” frequency rank
61515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cueille cueillir
Definition Action de cueillir. Détacher des fruits, des fleurs, des légumes de leurs branches ou de leurs tiges.

Where the eye mixes cueille and cueillir

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. cueille runs 7 letters (CVVVCCV) against cueillir's 8 (CVVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
cueille
8 ch
cueillir

Look-alike desk: cueille vs cueillir

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cueille is \kœj\ while cueillir is \kœ.jiʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61515, 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\. cueillir is at rank #19,250, tagged as averb, pronounced \kœ.jiʁ\.

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 61515, this pair ranks #91,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cueille vs cueillir

Shared letters: ceilu. Private to "cueille": -. Private to "cueillir": r.

"cueille" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV  ·  "cueillir" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cueilleccueille · ceuille · cueile · cueilel · cuelile · cuielle · uceille
  • cueillirccueillir · ceuillir · cueililr · cueilir · cueillirr · cueillri · cuelilir · cuiellir

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cueille" for "cueillir" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cueille" is a noun and "cueillir" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cueille" or "cueillir"?
"cueillir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,250 in our French list, against #42,265 for "cueille". 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 "cueillir" 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 "cueillir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #91,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cueille" and "cueillir" 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 #91,833 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