Which to use
“surveille” is a noun and “surveillés” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,416
- “surveille” frequency rank
- #25,143
- “surveillés” frequency rank
- 35559
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | surveille | surveillés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Avant-veille, le jour qui précède immédiatement la veille. Il est peu usité : on dit plutôt avant-veille. | Participe passé masculin pluriel de surveiller. |
Where the eye mixes surveille and surveillés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. surveille runs 9 letters (CVCCVVCCV) against surveillés's 10 (CVCCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between surveille and surveillés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: surveille is \syʁ.vɛj\ while surveillés is \syʁ.ve.je\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35559, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
surveille is recorded at frequency rank #10,416, classified as anoun, pronounced \syʁ.vɛj\. surveillés is at rank #25,143, tagged as averb, pronounced \syʁ.ve.je\.
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 35559, this pair ranks #275,846 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of surveille vs surveillés
Shared letters: eilrsuv. Private to "surveille": -. Private to "surveillés": é.
"surveille" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV · "surveillés" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- surveille ← sruveille · ssurveille · sureville · surrveille · surveile · surveilel · survelile · survielle
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "surveille" for "surveillés" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "surveille" or "surveillés" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "surveille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "surveillés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #275,846 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "surveille" and "surveillés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "surveillées vs surveillés". 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 #275,846 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.