fillvsfilmeTell them apart

Quick tell: fill is a adverb, filme is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fill” is an adverb and “filme” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,807
“fill” frequency rank
#14,040
“filme” frequency rank
52847
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fill filme
Definition Aussitôt, immédiatement, sitôt, tout de suite, d’abord. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de filmer.

Where the eye mixes fill and filme

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. fill runs 4 letters (CVCC) against filme's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
fill
5 ch
filme

Visual trap between fill and filme

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fill is \ˈfiɫ\ while filme is \film\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52847, 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\. filme is at rank #14,040, tagged as averb, pronounced \film\.

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 52847, this pair ranks #144,852 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fill vs filme

Shared letters: fil. Private to "fill": -. Private to "filme": em.

"fill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "filme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fill ← ffill · flil · ifll
  • filme ← ffilme · filem · fillme · filmme · fimle · flime · iflme

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fill" for "filme" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fill" is an adverb and "filme" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fill" or "filme"?
"filme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,040 in our French list, against #38,807 for "fill". 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 "fill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "filme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #144,852 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fill" and "filme" 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 #144,852 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