Which to use
“surveillée” and “surveiller” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,167
- “surveillée” frequency rank
- #4,809
- “surveiller” frequency rank
- 23976
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | surveillée | surveiller |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé féminin singulier de surveiller. | Observer avec attention ; examiner ; contrôler. |
Where the eye mixes surveillée and surveiller
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. surveillée (CVCCVVCCVV) and surveiller (CVCCVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between surveillée and surveiller
A purely visual mix-up. surveillée (\syʁ.ve.je\) and surveiller (\syʁ.vɛ.je\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
surveillée is recorded at frequency rank #19,167, classified as averb, pronounced \syʁ.ve.je\. surveiller is at rank #4,809, tagged as averb, pronounced \syʁ.vɛ.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 23976, this pair ranks #349,364 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of surveillée vs surveiller
Shared letters: eilrsuv. Private to "surveillée": é. Private to "surveiller": -.
"surveillée" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVV · "surveiller" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- surveiller ← sruveiller · ssurveiller · sureviller · surrveiller · surveilelr · surveiler · surveillerr · surveillre
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "surveillée" for "surveiller" ever safe?
Frequency check: "surveillée" vs "surveiller" - which ranks higher?
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 "surveillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "surveiller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #349,364 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "surveillée" and "surveiller" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "surveillée vs surveillées". 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 #349,364 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.