elevsellesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#40,239
“ele” frequency rank
#176
“elles” frequency rank
40415
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ele elles
Definition Parole, discours, propos. Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du pluriel féminin sujet, pour parler d’un groupe de femmes, d’animaux ou de choses grammaticalement féminines.

Letter map: ele vs elles

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

3 ch
ele
5 ch
elles

Role in the sentence - ele and elles

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ele is anoun and ellesapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40415, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ele is recorded at frequency rank #40,239, classified as anoun. 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 40415, this pair ranks #240,687 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ele vs elles

Shared letters: el. Private to "ele": -. Private to "elles": s.

"ele" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "elles" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • elles ← elels · eles · elless · ellse · leles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ele" and "elles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ele" is a noun and "elles" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ele" vs "elles" - which ranks higher?
"elles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #176 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

You've compared "ele" and "elles". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ele" 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 #240,687 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ele" and "elles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ele vs EPO". 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 #240,687 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