veilléevsvilleWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,132
“veillée” frequency rank
#182
“ville” frequency rank
22314
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veillée ville
Definition Temps pendant lequel on veille, soirée. Assemblage ordonné d'un nombre assez considérable de maisons disposées par rues, et limitées parfois par une enceinte.

Where the eye mixes veillée and ville

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

7 ch
veillée
5 ch
ville

Why the eye confuses veillée with ville

A purely visual mix-up. veillée (\ve.je\) and ville (\vil\) 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 22314, 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\. ville is at rank #182, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vil\.

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 22314, this pair ranks #358,666 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of veillée vs ville

Shared letters: eilv. Private to "veillée": é. Private to "ville": -.

"veillée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV  ·  "ville" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ville ← ivlle · vilel · vlile · vville

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "veillée" for "ville" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ve.je\ versus \vil\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "veillée" or "ville"?
"ville" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #182 in our French list, against #22,132 for "veillée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "ville" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #358,666 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veillée" and "ville" 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 #358,666 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