exilvsexiléeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,503
“exil” frequency rank
#45,601
“exilée” frequency rank
52104
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exil exilée
Definition État de celui que l’autorité force à vivre hors de sa patrie, ou qui s’y résout lui-même. Femme exilée.

Where the eye mixes exil and exilée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. exil runs 4 letters (VCVC) against exilée's 6 (VCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
exil
6 ch
exilée

Visual trap between exil and exilée

A purely visual mix-up. exil (\ɛɡ.zil\) and exilée (\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 differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “exil” sits inside “exilée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52104, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exil is recorded at frequency rank #6,503, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛɡ.zil\. exilée is at rank #45,601, tagged as anoun, 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 52104, this pair ranks #150,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of exil vs exilée

Shared letters: eilx. Private to "exil": -. Private to "exilée": é.

"exil" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "exilée" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exil ← eixl · exill · exli · exxil · xeil

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "exil" and "exilée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛɡ.zil\ versus \ɛɡ.zi.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "exil" or "exilée" show up more?
"exil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,503 in our French list, against #45,601 for "exilée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "exil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exilée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #150,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exil" and "exilée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exigez vs exilée". 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 #150,145 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