Which to use
“Pilate” is a name and “pillée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #34,672
- “Pilate” frequency rank
- #49,275
- “pillée” frequency rank
- 83947
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Pilate | pillée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ponce Pilate, gouverneur romain qui régissait la Judée lors de la mise en croix de Jésus de Nazareth. | Participe passé féminin singulier de piller. |
Where the eye mixes Pilate and pillée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Pilate (CVCVCV) and pillée (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between Pilate and pillée
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Pilate is \pi.lat\ while pillée is \pi.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83947, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Pilate is recorded at frequency rank #34,672, classified as aname, pronounced \pi.lat\. pillée is at rank #49,275, 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 83947, this pair ranks #13,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Pilate vs pillée
Shared letters: eilp. Private to "Pilate": at. Private to "pillée": é.
"Pilate" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "pillée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- Pilate ← iplate · pialte · pilaet · pilatte · pillate · piltae · pliate · ppilate
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Pilate" for "pillée" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "Pilate" or "pillée" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "Pilate" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pillée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #13,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Pilate" and "pillée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pillée vs Pirée". 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 #13,867 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.