kilvskilosWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#21,983
“kil” frequency rank
#5,472
“kilos” frequency rank
27455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kil kilos
Definition Mesure de volume équivalente à environ deux litres. Pluriel de kilo.

Where the eye mixes kil and kilos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. kil runs 3 letters (CVC) against kilos's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
kil
5 ch
kilos

Look-alike desk: kil vs kilos

A purely visual mix-up. kil (\kil\) and kilos (\ki.lo\) 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) - “kil” sits inside “kilos”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kil is recorded at frequency rank #21,983, classified as anoun, pronounced \kil\. kilos is at rank #5,472, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ki.lo\.

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 27455, this pair ranks #328,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kil vs kilos

Shared letters: ikl. Private to "kil": -. Private to "kilos": os.

"kil" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "kilos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • kilos ← iklos · killos · kiloss · kilso · kiols · kkilos · klios

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "kil" and "kilos" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kil\ versus \ki.lo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "kil" vs "kilos" - which ranks higher?
"kilos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,472 in our French list, against #21,983 for "kil". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "kil" and "kilos" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "kil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "kilos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #328,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "kil" and "kilos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kil vs ky". 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 #328,836 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