veilléesvsveuillesConfusable pair

Quick tell: veillées is a adjective, veuilles is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#45,369
“veillées” frequency rank
#26,575
“veuilles” frequency rank
71944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature veillées veuilles
Definition Féminin pluriel de veillé. Deuxième personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de vouloir.

Where the eye mixes veillées and veuilles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. veillées (CVVCCVVC) and veuilles (CVVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
veillées
8 ch
veuilles

Why the eye confuses veillées with veuilles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: veillées is \ve.je\ while veuilles is \vœj\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

veillées is recorded at frequency rank #45,369, classified as anadj, pronounced \ve.je\. veuilles is at rank #26,575, tagged as averb, pronounced \vœj\.

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 71944, this pair ranks #45,731 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of veillées vs veuilles

Shared letters: eilsv. Private to "veillées": é. Private to "veuilles": u.

"veillées" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC  ·  "veuilles" · 8 letters · shape CVVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • veuillesevuilles · veiulles · veuilels · veuiles · veuilless · veuillse · veuliles · vueilles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "veillées" and "veuilles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "veillées" is an adjective and "veuilles" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "veillées" or "veuilles" show up more?
"veuilles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,575 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.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "veillées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "veuilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,731 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "veillées" and "veuilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "veillées vs veilleur". 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 #45,731 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