filervsfilezWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,321
“filer” frequency rank
#49,655
“filez” frequency rank
56976
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature filer filez
Definition Tordre ensemble plusieurs brins de chanvre, de lin, de soie, de laine, etc., pour qu’ils forment un fil. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de filer.

Same sound, different letters: filer vs filez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. filer and filez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
filer
5 ch
filez

Homophone desk: filer vs filez

This is the hard kind. filer and filez are pronounced identically (\fi.le\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - r in “filer” becomes z in “filez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

filer is recorded at frequency rank #7,321, classified as averb, pronounced \fi.le\. filez is at rank #49,655, tagged as averb, pronounced \fi.le\.

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 56976, this pair ranks #117,785 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of filer vs filez

Shared letters: efil. Private to "filer": r. Private to "filez": z.

"filer" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "filez" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • filer ← ffiler · fielr · filerr · filler · filre · flier · ifler
  • filez ← ffilez · fielz · filezz · fillez · filze · fliez · iflez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "filer" for "filez" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\fi.le\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "filer" vs "filez" - which ranks higher?
"filer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,321 in our French list, against #49,655 for "filez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "filer" / "filez". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "filer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "filez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #117,785 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "filer" and "filez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fila 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 #117,785 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