Which to use
“école” and “exilé” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #421
- “école” frequency rank
- #17,950
- “exilé” frequency rank
- 18371
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | école | exilé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu dédié à l’apprentissage. | Personne qui quitte volontairement ou non son lieu de vie original. |
Where the eye mixes école and exilé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. école and exilé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses école with exilé
A purely visual mix-up. école (\e.kɔl\) and exilé (\ɛɡ.zi.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18371, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
école is recorded at frequency rank #421, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kɔl\. exilé is at rank #17,950, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛɡ.zi.le\.
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 18371, this pair ranks #378,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of école vs exilé
Shared letters: elé. Private to "école": co. Private to "exilé": ix.
"école" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV · "exilé" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "école" for "exilé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "école" or "exilé"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "école" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "exilé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #378,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "école" and "exilé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exigez vs exilé". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #378,670 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.