smilevssmileysWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#27,233
“smile” frequency rank
#41,540
“smileys” frequency rank
68773
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature smile smileys
Definition Sourire. Pluriel de smiley.

Letter map: smile vs smileys

Shared letters muted; letters that set smile and smileys apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. smile runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against smileys's 7 (CCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
smile
7 ch
smileys

Spelling & dictionary notes on smile vs smileys

smile and smileys are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “smile” sits inside “smileys”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68773, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

smile is recorded at frequency rank #27,233, classified as anoun. smileys is at rank #41,540, tagged as anoun, pronounced \smaj.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 68773, this pair ranks #57,778 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of smile vs smileys

Shared letters: eilms. Private to "smile": -. Private to "smileys": y.

"smile" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "smileys" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • smile ← msile · simle · smiel · smille · smlie · smmile · ssmile
  • smileys ← msileys · simleys · smielys · smilesy · smileyss · smileyys · smilleys · smilyes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "smile" for "smileys" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “smile” sits inside “smileys”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "smile" or "smileys" show up more?
"smile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,233 in our French list, against #41,540 for "smileys". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "smile" vs "smileys" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "smile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "smileys" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,778 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "smile" and "smileys" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "smileys vs Stiles". 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 #57,778 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