veilléevsveilléesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#22,132
“veillée” frequency rank
#45,369
“veillées” frequency rank
67501
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veillée veillées
Definition Temps pendant lequel on veille, soirée. Féminin pluriel de veillé.

Same sound, different letters: veillée vs veillées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. veillée runs 7 letters (CVVCCVV) against veillées's 8 (CVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
veillée
8 ch
veillées

Same sound, different spelling - veillée / veillées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: veillée and veillées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ve.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “veillée” sits inside “veillées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67501, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

veillée is recorded at frequency rank #22,132, classified as anoun, pronounced \ve.je\. veillées is at rank #45,369, tagged as anadj, pronounced \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 67501, this pair ranks #63,186 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of veillée vs veillées

Shared letters: eilvé. Private to "veillée": -. Private to "veillées": s.

"veillée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV  ·  "veillées" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "veillée" and "veillées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "veillée" is a noun and "veillées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "veillée" or "veillées"?
"veillée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,132 in our French list, against #45,369 for "veillées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "veillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "veillées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,186 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veillée" and "veillées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "veillées vs veilleur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #63,186 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