Which to use
“fouillée” is a verb and “fouilles” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,848
- “fouillée” frequency rank
- #8,712
- “fouilles” frequency rank
- 45560
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fouillée | fouilles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé féminin singulier de fouiller. | Pluriel de fouille. |
Where the eye mixes fouillée and fouilles
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. fouillée (CVVVCCVV) and fouilles (CVVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: fouillée vs fouilles
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fouillée is \fu.je\ while fouilles is \fuj\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45560, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fouillée is recorded at frequency rank #36,848, classified as averb, pronounced \fu.je\. fouilles is at rank #8,712, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fuj\.
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 45560, this pair ranks #201,815 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fouillée vs fouilles
Shared letters: efilou. Private to "fouillée": é. Private to "fouilles": s.
"fouillée" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVV · "fouilles" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- fouilles ← ffouilles · foiulles · fouilels · fouiles · fouilless · fouillse · fouliles · fuoilles
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fouillée" for "fouilles" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "fouillée" or "fouilles" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "fouillée" and "fouilles" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "fouillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fouilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #201,815 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fouillée" and "fouilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fouillée vs fouillent". 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 #201,815 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.