pilléevspillésTell them apart

Which to use

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

#49,275
“pillée” frequency rank
#40,925
“pillés” frequency rank
90200
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pillée pillés
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de piller. Participe passé masculin pluriel de piller.

Same sound, different letters: pillée vs pillés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. pillée (CVCCVV) and pillés (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
pillée
6 ch
pillés

Same sound, different spelling - pillée / pillés

This is the hard kind. pillée and pillés are pronounced identically (\pi.je\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “pillée” becomes s in “pillés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90200, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pillée is recorded at frequency rank #49,275, classified as averb, pronounced \pi.je\. 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 90200, this pair ranks #5,035 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pillée vs pillés

Shared letters: ilpé. Private to "pillée": e. Private to "pillés": s.

"pillée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "pillés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pillée" and "pillés" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pi.je\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "pillée" or "pillés" show up more?
"pillés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,925 in our French list, against #49,275 for "pillée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pillée" 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 #5,035 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pillée" and "pillés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pillée vs Pirée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #5,035 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