elavsélevaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#47,314
“ela” frequency rank
#38,614
“éleva” frequency rank
85928
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ela éleva
Definition Activité de loisir, amateur, loisir. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de élever.

Where the eye mixes ela and éleva

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ela
5 ch
éleva

Why the eye confuses ela with éleva

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ela is \ˈɛla\ while éleva is \e.lə.va\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 85928, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ela is recorded at frequency rank #47,314, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈɛla\. éleva is at rank #38,614, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.lə.va\.

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 85928, this pair ranks #10,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ela vs éleva

Shared letters: ael. Private to "ela": -. Private to "éleva": .

"ela" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "éleva" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ela" and "éleva" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ela" is a noun and "éleva" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ela" vs "éleva" - which ranks higher?
"éleva" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,614 in our French list, against #47,314 for "ela". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ela" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éleva" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ela" and "éleva" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ela vs EPO". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #10,525 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