faillesvsfaillitesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,382
“failles” frequency rank
#27,433
“faillites” frequency rank
39815
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature failles faillites
Definition Pluriel de faille. Pluriel de faillite.

Where the eye mixes failles and faillites

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. failles runs 7 letters (CVVCCVC) against faillites's 9 (CVVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
failles
9 ch
faillites

Why the eye confuses failles with faillites

A purely visual mix-up. failles (\faj\) and faillites (\fa.jit\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

failles is recorded at frequency rank #12,382, classified as anoun, pronounced \faj\. faillites is at rank #27,433, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fa.jit\.

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 39815, this pair ranks #245,160 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of failles vs faillites

Shared letters: aefils. Private to "failles": -. Private to "faillites": t.

"failles" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "faillites" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • failles ← afilles · failels · failes · failless · faillse · faliles · ffailles · fialles
  • faillites ← afillites · faililtes · failites · failliets · faillitess · faillitse · faillittes · faillties

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "failles" and "faillites" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\faj\ versus \fa.jit\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "failles" or "faillites"?
"failles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,382 in our French list, against #27,433 for "faillites". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "failles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "faillites" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #245,160 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "failles" and "faillites" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "failles vs faires". 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 #245,160 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