Which to use
“veillée” and “vieille” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #22,132
- “veillée” frequency rank
- #1,843
- “vieille” frequency rank
- 23975
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | veillée | vieille |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Temps pendant lequel on veille, soirée. | Femme âgée. |
Where the eye mixes veillée and vieille
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. veillée (CVVCCVV) and vieille (CVVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between veillée and vieille
A purely visual mix-up. veillée (\ve.je\) and vieille (\vjɛj\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23975, 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\. vieille is at rank #1,843, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vjɛj\.
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 23975, this pair ranks #349,376 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of veillée vs vieille
Shared letters: eilv. Private to "veillée": é. Private to "vieille": -.
"veillée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV · "vieille" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- vieille ← iveille · veiille · vieile · vieilel · vielile · viielle · vvieille
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "veillée" and "vieille" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "veillée" or "vieille" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "veillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "vieille" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #349,376 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "veillée" and "vieille" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "veillée vs veillées". 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 #349,376 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.