feuillesvsfouillerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: feuilles is a noun, fouiller is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“feuilles” is a noun and “fouiller” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,717
“feuilles” frequency rank
#11,590
“fouiller” frequency rank
14307
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feuilles fouiller
Definition Pluriel de feuille. Pratiquer un creux dans la terre.

Where the eye mixes feuilles and fouiller

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. feuilles and fouiller follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
feuilles
8 ch
fouiller

Look-alike desk: feuilles vs fouiller

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: feuilles is \fœj\ while fouiller is \fu.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14307, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feuilles is recorded at frequency rank #2,717, classified as anoun, pronounced \fœj\. fouiller is at rank #11,590, tagged as averb, pronounced \fu.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 14307, this pair ranks #397,273 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of feuilles vs fouiller

Shared letters: efilu. Private to "feuilles": s. Private to "fouiller": or.

"feuilles" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC  ·  "fouiller" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feuillesefuilles · feiulles · feuilels · feuiles · feuilless · feuillse · feuliles · ffeuilles
  • fouillerffouiller · foiuller · fouilelr · fouiler · fouillerr · fouillre · fouliler · fuoiller

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "feuilles" for "fouiller" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "feuilles" is a noun and "fouiller" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "feuilles" vs "fouiller" - which ranks higher?
"feuilles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,717 in our French list, against #11,590 for "fouiller". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "feuilles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fouiller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #397,273 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feuilles" and "fouiller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fouiller vs fouiner". 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 #397,273 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