Which to use
“faille” is a noun and “failli” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,087
- “faille” frequency rank
- #4,669
- “failli” frequency rank
- 10756
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | faille | failli |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fracture, fissure avec rejet des deux blocs situés de part et d’autre de la cassure. | Se dit d'un chevron, d'une bande, d'une fasce, d'un pal, d'un meuble quelconque, dont la longueur ou la largeur se trouve interrompue par un vide parfaitement carré ou le séparant en deux. |
Where the eye mixes faille and failli
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between faille and failli
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: faille is \faj\ while failli is \fa.ji\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “faille” becomes i in “failli”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10756, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
faille is recorded at frequency rank #6,087, classified as anoun, pronounced \faj\. failli is at rank #4,669, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fa.ji\.
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 10756, this pair ranks #411,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of faille vs failli
Shared letters: afil. Private to "faille": e. Private to "failli": -.
"faille" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "failli" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "faille" and "failli" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "faille" or "failli" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "faille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "failli" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #411,763 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "faille" and "failli" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faiblir vs failli". 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 #411,763 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.