pillésvspoliesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: pillés is a verb, polies is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#40,925
“pillés” frequency rank
#43,074
“polies” frequency rank
83999
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pillés polies
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel de piller. Féminin pluriel de poli.

Where the eye mixes pillés and polies

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pillés (CVCCVC) and polies (CVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
pillés
6 ch
polies

Look-alike desk: pillés vs polies

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pillés is \pi.je\ while polies is \po.li\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83999, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pillés is recorded at frequency rank #40,925, classified as averb, pronounced \pi.je\. polies is at rank #43,074, tagged as anadj, pronounced \po.li\.

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 83999, this pair ranks #13,774 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pillés vs polies

Shared letters: ilps. Private to "pillés": é. Private to "polies": eo.

"pillés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "polies" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • polies ← oplies · ploies · poiles · poleis · poliess · polise · pollies · ppolies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pillés" and "polies" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pillés" is a verb and "polies" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pillés" or "polies"?
"pillés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,925 in our French list, against #43,074 for "polies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pillés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "polies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,774 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pillés" and "polies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poilues vs polies". 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 #13,774 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