évitervsexilerTell them apart

Which to use

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

#862
“éviter” frequency rank
#28,165
“exiler” frequency rank
29027
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature éviter exiler
Definition Échapper, se soustraire à quelque chose de nuisible, de désagréable. Envoyer en exil.

Where the eye mixes éviter and exiler

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

6 ch
éviter
6 ch
exiler

Visual trap between éviter and exiler

A purely visual mix-up. éviter (\e.vi.te\) and exiler (\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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29027, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

éviter is recorded at frequency rank #862, classified as averb, pronounced \e.vi.te\. exiler is at rank #28,165, tagged as averb, 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 29027, this pair ranks #319,193 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of éviter vs exiler

Shared letters: eir. Private to "éviter": tvé. Private to "exiler": lx.

"éviter" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "exiler" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exilereixler · exielr · exilerr · exiller · exilre · exlier · exxiler · xeiler

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "éviter" and "exiler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\e.vi.te\ versus \ɛɡ.zi.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "éviter" vs "exiler" - which ranks higher?
"éviter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #862 in our French list, against #28,165 for "exiler". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "éviter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exiler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #319,193 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "éviter" and "exiler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "épier vs exiler". 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 #319,193 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