Which to use
“piller” and “piloter” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,103
- “piller” frequency rank
- #13,863
- “piloter” frequency rank
- 32966
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piller | piloter |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Emporter violemment les biens d’une ville, d’une maison, etc. | Conduire un bâtiment de mer. |
Where the eye mixes piller and piloter
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. piller runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against piloter's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses piller with piloter
A purely visual mix-up. piller (\pi.je\) and piloter (\pi.lɔ.te\) 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 32966, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
piller is recorded at frequency rank #19,103, classified as averb, pronounced \pi.je\. piloter is at rank #13,863, tagged as averb, pronounced \pi.lɔ.te\.
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 32966, this pair ranks #293,769 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of piller vs piloter
Shared letters: eilpr. Private to "piller": -. Private to "piloter": ot.
"piller" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "piloter" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "piller" and "piloter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "piller" or "piloter" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "piller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "piloter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #293,769 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piller" and "piloter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pillée vs piller". 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 #293,769 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.