faillesvsfusillésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,382
“failles” frequency rank
#31,043
“fusillés” frequency rank
43425
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature failles fusillés
Definition Pluriel de faille. Pluriel de fusillé.

Where the eye mixes failles and fusillés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. failles runs 7 letters (CVVCCVC) against fusillés's 8 (CVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
failles
8 ch
fusillés

Why the eye confuses failles with fusillés

A purely visual mix-up. failles (\faj\) and fusillés (\fy.zi.je\) 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 43425, 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\. fusillés is at rank #31,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fy.zi.je\.

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 43425, this pair ranks #218,156 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of failles vs fusillés

Shared letters: fils. Private to "failles": ae. Private to "fusillés": ué.

"failles" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "fusillés" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • failles ← afilles · failels · failes · failless · faillse · faliles · ffailles · fialles

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "failles" for "fusillés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\faj\ versus \fy.zi.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "failles" vs "fusillés" - which ranks higher?
"failles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,382 in our French list, against #31,043 for "fusillés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "failles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fusillés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #218,156 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "failles" and "fusillés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fusiliers vs fusillés". 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 #218,156 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