fielvsfieldConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#36,843
“fiel” frequency rank
#17,136
“field” frequency rank
53979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fiel field
Definition Bile, généralement celle du bœuf. Champ (terre).

Where the eye mixes fiel and field

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. fiel runs 4 letters (CVVC) against field's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
fiel
5 ch
field

Why the eye confuses fiel with field

A purely visual mix-up. fiel (\fjɛl\) and field (\fiːld\) 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 extra letter(s) - “fiel” sits inside “field”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fiel is recorded at frequency rank #36,843, classified as anoun, pronounced \fjɛl\. field is at rank #17,136, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fiːld\.

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 53979, this pair ranks #137,135 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fiel vs field

Shared letters: efil. Private to "fiel": -. Private to "field": d.

"fiel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "field" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fiel ← feil · ffiel · fiell · ifel
  • field ← feild · ffield · fiedl · fieldd · fielld · filed · ifeld

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fiel" for "field" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fjɛl\ versus \fiːld\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "fiel" or "field"?
"field" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,136 in our French list, against #36,843 for "fiel". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fiel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "field" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #137,135 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fiel" and "field" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fiel vs filez". 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 #137,135 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