vallevsvalléesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#36,200
“valle” frequency rank
#10,098
“vallées” frequency rank
46298
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature valle vallées
Definition Val, vallée, vallon. Pluriel de vallée.

Where the eye mixes valle and vallées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. valle runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against vallées's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
valle
7 ch
vallées

Why the eye confuses valle with vallées

A purely visual mix-up. valle ([ˈbaʎe]) and vallées (\va.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

valle is recorded at frequency rank #36,200, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbaʎe]. vallées is at rank #10,098, tagged as anoun, pronounced \va.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 46298, this pair ranks #196,040 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of valle vs vallées

Shared letters: aelv. Private to "valle": -. Private to "vallées": sé.

"valle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "vallées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • valle ← avlle · valel · vlale · vvalle

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "valle" for "vallées" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈbaʎe] versus \va.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "valle" or "vallées"?
"vallées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,098 in our French list, against #36,200 for "valle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "valle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vallées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,040 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "valle" and "vallées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Vail vs valle". 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 #196,040 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