Which to use
“veille” and “vielle” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,203
- “veille” frequency rank
- #17,035
- “vielle” frequency rank
- 19238
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | veille | vielle |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | État du corps de l’homme ou de l’animal, dans lequel les sens sont en action. | Instrument de musique à cordes, dont on joue par le moyen de touches et d’une roue qu’on tourne avec une manivelle, qui permet de faire sonner les cordes mélodiques et bourdon, et, par accélérations rapides, de faire vibrer la corde trompette et le chien pour donner un son caractéristique grésillant. |
Where the eye mixes veille and vielle
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: veille vs vielle
A purely visual mix-up. veille (\vɛj\) and vielle (\vjɛl\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (ei ↔ ie) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19238, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
veille is recorded at frequency rank #2,203, classified as anoun, pronounced \vɛj\. vielle is at rank #17,035, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vjɛl\.
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 19238, this pair ranks #374,256 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of veille vs vielle
Shared letters: eilv. Private to "veille": -. Private to "vielle": -.
"veille" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "vielle" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "veille" and "vielle" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "veille" or "vielle"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "veille" and "vielle" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "veille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "vielle" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #374,256 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "veille" and "vielle" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vielle vs vile". 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 #374,256 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.