exilévsexilerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#17,950
“exilé” frequency rank
#28,165
“exiler” frequency rank
46115
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exilé exiler
Definition Personne qui quitte volontairement ou non son lieu de vie original. Envoyer en exil.

Same sound, different letters: exilé vs exiler

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. exilé runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against exiler's 6 (VCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
exilé
6 ch
exiler

Homophone desk: exilé vs exiler

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exilé and exiler carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛɡ.zi.le\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46115, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exilé is recorded at frequency rank #17,950, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛɡ.zi.le\. 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 46115, this pair ranks #197,494 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of exilé vs exiler

Shared letters: eilx. Private to "exilé": é. Private to "exiler": r.

"exilé" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "exiler" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exiler ← eixler · exielr · exilerr · exiller · exilre · exlier · exxiler · xeiler

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "exilé" for "exiler" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exilé" is a noun and "exiler" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "exilé" or "exiler"?
"exilé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,950 in our French list, against #28,165 for "exiler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "exilé" / "exiler". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "exilé" 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 #197,494 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exilé" 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 #197,494 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