Which to use
“houiller” is an adjective and “houilles” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #41,827
- “houiller” frequency rank
- #42,383
- “houilles” frequency rank
- 84210
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | houiller | houilles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui se rapporte à la houille. | Pluriel de houille. |
Where the eye mixes houiller and houilles
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. houiller and houilles follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: houiller vs houilles
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: houiller is ^((h aspiré))\u.je\ while houilles is ^((h aspiré))\uj\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “houiller” becomes s in “houilles”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84210, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
houiller is recorded at frequency rank #41,827, classified as anadj, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\u.je\. houilles is at rank #42,383, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\uj\.
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 84210, this pair ranks #13,388 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of houiller vs houilles
Shared letters: ehilou. Private to "houiller": r. Private to "houilles": s.
"houiller" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC · "houilles" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "houiller" for "houilles" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "houiller" or "houilles" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "houiller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "houilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #13,388 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "houiller" and "houilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "houillères vs houilles". 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 #13,388 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.