Which to use
“fill” is an adverb and “fillon” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #38,807
- “fill” frequency rank
- #3,004
- “fillon” frequency rank
- 41811
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fill | fillon |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Aussitôt, immédiatement, sitôt, tout de suite, d’abord. | Petit coquillage comestible, appartenant au genre telline. |
Where the eye mixes fill and fillon
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. fill runs 4 letters (CVCC) against fillon's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between fill and fillon
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fill is \ˈfiɫ\ while fillon is \fi.jɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “fill” sits inside “fillon”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41811, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fill is recorded at frequency rank #38,807, classified as anadv, pronounced \ˈfiɫ\. 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 41811, this pair ranks #230,322 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fill vs fillon
Shared letters: fil. Private to "fill": -. Private to "fillon": no.
"fill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "fillon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fill" and "fillon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "fill" vs "fillon" - which ranks higher?
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 "fill" 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 #230,322 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fill" and "fillon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs fill". 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 #230,322 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.