pillentvspillésTell them apart

Which to use

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

#36,996
“pillent” frequency rank
#40,925
“pillés” frequency rank
77921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pillent pillés
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de piller. Participe passé masculin pluriel de piller.

Where the eye mixes pillent and pillés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pillent runs 7 letters (CVCCVCC) against pillés's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
pillent
6 ch
pillés

Why the eye confuses pillent with pillés

A purely visual mix-up. pillent (\pij\) and pillés (\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 77921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pillent is recorded at frequency rank #36,996, classified as averb, pronounced \pij\. 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 77921, this pair ranks #27,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pillent vs pillés

Shared letters: ilp. Private to "pillent": ent. Private to "pillés": .

"pillent" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "pillés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pillentipllent · pilelnt · pilent · pillennt · pillentt · pilletn · pillnet · plilent

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pillent" for "pillés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pij\ versus \pi.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "pillent" or "pillés" show up more?
"pillent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,996 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pillent" 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 #27,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pillent" 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 #27,088 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