veilléevsveillezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: veillée is a noun, veillez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#22,132
“veillée” frequency rank
#23,727
“veillez” frequency rank
45859
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veillée veillez
Definition Temps pendant lequel on veille, soirée. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de veiller.

Same sound, different letters: veillée vs veillez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. veillée (CVVCCVV) and veillez (CVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
veillée
7 ch
veillez

Ear matches; page differs - veillée and veillez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: veillée and veillez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ve.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45859, 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\. veillez is at rank #23,727, tagged as averb, 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 45859, this pair ranks #199,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of veillée vs veillez

Shared letters: eilv. Private to "veillée": é. Private to "veillez": z.

"veillée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV  ·  "veillez" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veillez ← evillez · veilelz · veilez · veillezz · veillze · velilez · viellez · vveillez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "veillée" for "veillez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "veillée" is a noun and "veillez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "veillée" or "veillez"?
"veillée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,132 in our French list, against #23,727 for "veillez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "veillée" / "veillez". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "veillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "veillez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #199,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veillée" and "veillez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "veillées vs veillez". 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 #199,480 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