fellowvsfillonConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#37,331
“fellow” frequency rank
#3,004
“fillon” frequency rank
40335
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fellow fillon
Definition Ami, camarade. Petit coquillage comestible, appartenant au genre telline.

Where the eye mixes fellow and fillon

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

6 ch
fellow
6 ch
fillon

Look-alike desk: fellow vs fillon

A purely visual mix-up. fellow (\ˈfɛl.oʊ\) and fillon (\fi.jɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40335, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fellow is recorded at frequency rank #37,331, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈfɛl.oʊ\. fillon is at rank #3,004, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fi.jɔ̃\.

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 40335, this pair ranks #241,307 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fellow vs fillon

Shared letters: flo. Private to "fellow": ew. Private to "fillon": in.

"fellow" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "fillon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fellowefllow · felloww · fellwo · felolw · felow · ffellow · flelow
  • fillonffillon · fillno · fillonn · filoln · flilon · ifllon

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fellow" and "fillon" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈfɛl.oʊ\ versus \fi.jɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fellow" or "fillon"?
"fillon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,004 in our French list, against #37,331 for "fellow". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fellow" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fillon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #241,307 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fellow" and "fillon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fallon vs fellow". 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 #241,307 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