pigesvspillésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: piges is a noun, pillés is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“piges” is a noun and “pillés” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,997
“piges” frequency rank
#40,925
“pillés” frequency rank
55922
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piges pillés
Definition Pluriel de pige. Participe passé masculin pluriel de piller.

Where the eye mixes piges and pillés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. piges runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against pillés's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
piges
6 ch
pillés

Why the eye confuses piges with pillés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: piges is \piʒ\ while pillés is \pi.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55922, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piges is recorded at frequency rank #14,997, classified as anoun, pronounced \piʒ\. pillés is at rank #40,925, 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 55922, this pair ranks #124,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of piges vs pillés

Shared letters: ips. Private to "piges": eg. Private to "pillés": lé.

"piges" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "pillés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • piges ← ipges · pgies · piegs · pigess · pigges · pigse · ppiges

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "piges" for "pillés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "piges" is a noun and "pillés" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "piges" or "pillés"?
"piges" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,997 in our French list, against #40,925 for "pillés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "piges" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pillés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #124,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piges" and "pillés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pillés vs poilues". 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 #124,343 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