elevsélèveWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“ele” and “élève” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#40,239
“ele” frequency rank
#1,796
“élève” frequency rank
42035
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ele élève
Definition Parole, discours, propos. Personne qui reçoit ou qui a reçu l'enseignement de quelqu'un autre.

Letter map: ele vs élève

Shared letters muted; letters that set ele and élève apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ele runs 3 letters (VCV) against élève's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
ele
5 ch
élève

Pair insight - ele / élève

ele and élève are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42035, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ele is recorded at frequency rank #40,239, classified as anoun. élève is at rank #1,796, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.lɛv\.

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 42035, this pair ranks #228,689 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ele vs élève

Shared letters: el. Private to "ele": -. Private to "élève": vèé.

"ele" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "élève" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ele" and "élève" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "ele" or "élève"?
"élève" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,796 in our French list, against #40,239 for "ele". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ele" and "élève".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ele" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "élève" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #228,689 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ele" and "élève" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ele vs EPO". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #228,689 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