fiolevsfiolesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#33,686
“fiole” frequency rank
#46,172
“fioles” frequency rank
79858
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fiole fioles
Definition Petit flacon ou petite bouteille de verre à col étroit. Pluriel de fiole.

Same sound, different letters: fiole vs fioles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. fiole runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against fioles's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
fiole
6 ch
fioles

Same sound, different spelling - fiole / fioles

This is the hard kind. fiole and fioles are pronounced identically (\fjɔl\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “fiole” sits inside “fioles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79858, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fiole is recorded at frequency rank #33,686, classified as anoun, pronounced \fjɔl\. fioles is at rank #46,172, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fjɔl\.

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 79858, this pair ranks #22,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fiole vs fioles

Shared letters: efilo. Private to "fiole": -. Private to "fioles": s.

"fiole" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "fioles" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fiole ← ffiole · filoe · fioel · fiolle · ifole
  • fioles ← ffioles · filoes · fioels · fioless · fiolles · fiolse · ifoles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fiole" and "fioles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\fjɔl\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "fiole" vs "fioles" - which ranks higher?
"fiole" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,686 in our French list, against #46,172 for "fioles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fiole" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fioles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #22,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fiole" and "fioles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs fioles". 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 #22,317 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