mouillévsmouillerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: mouillé is a adjective, mouiller is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mouillé” is an adjective and “mouiller” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,622
“mouillé” frequency rank
#16,187
“mouiller” frequency rank
28809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mouillé mouiller
Definition Qui est imbibé ou recouvert de gouttes de liquide, généralement de l’eau ; humide. Rendre humide, imbiber un objet de liquide.

Same sound, different letters: mouillé vs mouiller

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. mouillé runs 7 letters (CVVVCCV) against mouiller's 8 (CVVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
mouillé
8 ch
mouiller

Ear matches; page differs - mouillé and mouiller

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: mouillé and mouiller carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mu.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mouillé is recorded at frequency rank #12,622, classified as anadj, pronounced \mu.je\. mouiller is at rank #16,187, tagged as averb, pronounced \mu.je\.

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 28809, this pair ranks #320,569 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mouillé vs mouiller

Shared letters: ilmou. Private to "mouillé": é. Private to "mouiller": er.

"mouillé" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV  ·  "mouiller" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mouiller ← mmouiller · moiuller · mouilelr · mouiler · mouillerr · mouillre · mouliler · muoiller

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mouillé" and "mouiller" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mouillé" is an adjective and "mouiller" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mouillé" vs "mouiller" - which ranks higher?
"mouillé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,622 in our French list, against #16,187 for "mouiller". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mouillé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mouiller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,569 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mouillé" and "mouiller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mouillées vs mouiller". 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 #320,569 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