Which to use
“fille” and “filleul” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #312
- “fille” frequency rank
- #30,609
- “filleul” frequency rank
- 30921
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fille | filleul |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Enfant de genre féminin, par opposition à garçon ; aussi appelée fillette ou petite fille. | Fils spirituel d’un parrain ou d’une marraine; enfant pour lequel une cérémonie de parrainage a eu lieu. |
Where the eye mixes fille and filleul
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. fille runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against filleul's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses fille with filleul
A purely visual mix-up. fille (\fij\) and filleul (\fi.jœl\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “fille” sits inside “filleul”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fille is recorded at frequency rank #312, classified as anoun, pronounced \fij\. filleul is at rank #30,609, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fi.jœl\.
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 30921, this pair ranks #307,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fille vs filleul
Shared letters: efil. Private to "fille": -. Private to "filleul": u.
"fille" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "filleul" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fille" and "filleul" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "fille" or "filleul" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "fille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "filleul" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #307,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fille" and "filleul" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filleul vs filleule". 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 #307,144 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.