seillevssellerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: seille is a noun, seller is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seille” is a noun and “seller” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,308
“seille” frequency rank
#22,091
“seller” frequency rank
67399
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seille seller
Definition Bassine, munie d’oreilles dans lesquelles on passe une corde en guise d’anse et qui sert à transporter les liquides, en particulier, le mout tiré du pressoir. Mettre et affermir une selle sur un cheval, sur une mule, etc.

Where the eye mixes seille and seller

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. seille (CVVCCV) and seller (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
seille
6 ch
seller

Why the eye confuses seille with seller

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: seille is \sɛj\ while seller is \se.le\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67399, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seille is recorded at frequency rank #45,308, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛj\. seller is at rank #22,091, tagged as averb, pronounced \se.le\.

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 67399, this pair ranks #63,597 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of seille vs seller

Shared letters: els. Private to "seille": i. Private to "seller": r.

"seille" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "seller" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seille ← esille · seile · seilel · selile · sielle · sseille
  • seller ← esller · selelr · seler · sellerr · sellre · sleler · sseller

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "seille" and "seller" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seille" is a noun and "seller" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "seille" or "seller" show up more?
"seller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,091 in our French list, against #45,308 for "seille". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "seille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "seller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,597 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seille" and "seller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seille vs skill". 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 #63,597 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