Which to use
“poilue” is an adjective and “pollués” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,461
- “poilue” frequency rank
- #40,931
- “pollués” frequency rank
- 80392
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poilue | pollués |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de poilu. | Participe passé masculin pluriel de polluer. |
Where the eye mixes poilue and pollués
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses poilue with pollués
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: poilue is \pwa.ly\ while pollués is \pɔ.lɥe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80392, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poilue is recorded at frequency rank #39,461, classified as anadj, pronounced \pwa.ly\. pollués is at rank #40,931, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɔ.lɥe\.
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 80392, this pair ranks #21,060 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of poilue vs pollués
Shared letters: lopu. Private to "poilue": ei. Private to "pollués": sé.
"poilue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV · "pollués" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- poilue ← opilue · piolue · poileu · poillue · poiule · poliue · ppoilue
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "poilue" for "pollués" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "poilue" or "pollués" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "poilue" and "pollués" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "poilue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pollués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #21,060 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poilue" and "pollués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poilues vs pollués". 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 #21,060 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.