faillevsfioleWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,087
“faille” frequency rank
#33,686
“fiole” frequency rank
39773
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faille fiole
Definition Fracture, fissure avec rejet des deux blocs situés de part et d’autre de la cassure. Petit flacon ou petite bouteille de verre à col étroit.

Where the eye mixes faille and fiole

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
faille
5 ch
fiole

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. faille (\faj\) and fiole (\fjɔl\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39773, 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\. fiole is at rank #33,686, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fjɔl\.

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 39773, this pair ranks #245,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of faille vs fiole

Shared letters: efil. Private to "faille": a. Private to "fiole": o.

"faille" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "fiole" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • failleafille · faile · failel · falile · ffaille · fialle
  • fioleffiole · filoe · fioel · fiolle · ifole

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "faille" and "fiole" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\faj\ versus \fjɔl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "faille" or "fiole"?
"faille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,087 in our French list, against #33,686 for "fiole". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "faille" and "fiole". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "faille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fiole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #245,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faille" and "fiole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs fiole". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list