vaillancevsvaillantWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: vaillance is a noun, vaillant is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vaillance” is a noun and “vaillant” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,671
“vaillance” frequency rank
#16,261
“vaillant” frequency rank
63932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vaillance vaillant
Definition Courage ; bravoure. Qui a de la vaillance, qui est courageux.

Where the eye mixes vaillance and vaillant

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. vaillance runs 9 letters (CVVCCVCCV) against vaillant's 8 (CVVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
vaillance
8 ch
vaillant

Look-alike desk: vaillance vs vaillant

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vaillance is \va.jɑ̃s\ while vaillant is \va.jɑ̃\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vaillance is recorded at frequency rank #47,671, classified as anoun, pronounced \va.jɑ̃s\. vaillant is at rank #16,261, tagged as anadj, pronounced \va.jɑ̃\.

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 63932, this pair ranks #79,466 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vaillance vs vaillant

Shared letters: ailnv. Private to "vaillance": ce. Private to "vaillant": t.

"vaillance" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCV  ·  "vaillant" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vaillance ← avillance · vailalnce · vailance · vaillacne · vaillancce · vaillanec · vaillannce · vaillnace
  • vaillant ← avillant · vailalnt · vailant · vaillannt · vaillantt · vaillatn · vaillnat · valilant

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vaillance" and "vaillant" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vaillance" is a noun and "vaillant" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vaillance" or "vaillant"?
"vaillant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,261 in our French list, against #47,671 for "vaillance". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vaillance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vaillant" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,466 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vaillance" and "vaillant" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vaillance vs vaillante". 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 #79,466 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