idesvsileTell them apart

Which to use

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

#42,389
“ides” frequency rank
#3,925
“ile” frequency rank
46314
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ides ile
Definition Le quinzième jour des mois de mars, de mai, de juillet et d’octobre dans le calendrier des anciens Romains, et le treizième des autres mois. Espace de terre entouré d’eau de tous côtés.

Where the eye mixes ides and ile

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
ides
3 ch
ile

Visual trap between ides and ile

A purely visual mix-up. ides (\id\) and ile (\il\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46314, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ides is recorded at frequency rank #42,389, classified as anoun, pronounced \id\. ile is at rank #3,925, tagged as anoun, pronounced \il\.

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 46314, this pair ranks #195,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ides vs ile

Shared letters: ei. Private to "ides": ds. Private to "ile": l.

"ides" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ile" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • idesiddes · idess · ieds

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ides" and "ile" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\id\ versus \il\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "ides" or "ile" show up more?
"ile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,925 in our French list, against #42,389 for "ides". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "ides" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #195,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ides" and "ile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ides vs ime". 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 #195,926 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