édilesvsellesConfusable pair

Quick tell: édiles is a noun, elles is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“édiles” is a noun and “elles” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,117
“édiles” frequency rank
#176
“elles” frequency rank
47293
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature édiles elles
Definition Pluriel de édile. Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel féminin sujet, pour parler d’un groupe de femmes, d’animaux ou de choses grammaticalement féminines.

Where the eye mixes édiles and elles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
édiles
5 ch
elles

Why the eye confuses édiles with elles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: édiles is \e.dil\ while elles is \ɛl\. 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 pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47293, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

édiles is recorded at frequency rank #47,117, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.dil\. elles is at rank #176, tagged as apron, pronounced \ɛl\.

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 47293, this pair ranks #188,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of édiles vs elles

Shared letters: els. Private to "édiles": dié. Private to "elles": -.

"édiles" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "elles" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • elleselels · eles · elless · ellse · leles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "édiles" and "elles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "édiles" is a noun and "elles" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "édiles" or "elles" show up more?
"elles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #176 in our French list, against #47,117 for "édiles". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "édiles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "elles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #188,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "édiles" and "elles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "édiles vs endives". 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 #188,094 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