picolervspillerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#37,971
“picoler” frequency rank
#19,103
“piller” frequency rank
57074
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature picoler piller
Definition Boire des boissons alcooliques (transitif). Emporter violemment les biens d’une ville, d’une maison, etc.

Where the eye mixes picoler and piller

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. picoler runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against piller's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
picoler
6 ch
piller

Look-alike desk: picoler vs piller

A purely visual mix-up. picoler (\pi.kɔ.le\) and piller (\pi.je\) 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 57074, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

picoler is recorded at frequency rank #37,971, classified as averb, pronounced \pi.kɔ.le\. piller is at rank #19,103, tagged as averb, pronounced \pi.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 57074, this pair ranks #117,190 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of picoler vs piller

Shared letters: eilpr. Private to "picoler": co. Private to "piller": -.

"picoler" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "piller" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picoler ← ipcoler · pcioler · piccoler · picloer · picoelr · picolerr · picoller · picolre
  • piller ← ipller · pilelr · pillerr · pillre · pliler · ppiller

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "picoler" for "piller" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pi.kɔ.le\ versus \pi.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "picoler" or "piller"?
"piller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,103 in our French list, against #37,971 for "picoler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "picoler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #117,190 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "picoler" and "piller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "picoler vs pivoter". 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 #117,190 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