vidavsvilWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: vida is a verb, vil is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#26,576
“vida” frequency rank
#23,730
“vil” frequency rank
50306
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vida vil
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de vider. Qui est bas, abject, méprisable.

Where the eye mixes vida and vil

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
vida
3 ch
vil

Visual trap between vida and vil

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vida is \vi.da\ while vil is \vil\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50306, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vida is recorded at frequency rank #26,576, classified as averb, pronounced \vi.da\. vil is at rank #23,730, tagged as anadj, 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 50306, this pair ranks #163,710 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vida vs vil

Shared letters: iv. Private to "vida": ad. Private to "vil": l.

"vida" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "vil" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vidaivda · vdia · viad · vidda · vvida

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vida" and "vil" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vida" is a verb and "vil" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vida" vs "vil" - which ranks higher?
"vil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,730 in our French list, against #26,576 for "vida". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vida" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #163,710 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vida" and "vil" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vida vs vigan". 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 #163,710 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