Which to use
“vielle” is a noun and “violée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #17,035
- “vielle” frequency rank
- #14,173
- “violée” frequency rank
- 31208
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | vielle | violée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Instrument de musique à cordes, dont on joue par le moyen de touches et d’une roue qu’on tourne avec une manivelle, qui permet de faire sonner les cordes mélodiques et bourdon, et, par accélérations rapides, de faire vibrer la corde trompette et le chien pour donner un son caractéristique grésillant. | Participe passé féminin singulier de violer. |
Where the eye mixes vielle and violée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. vielle (CVVCCV) and violée (CVVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between vielle and violée
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vielle is \vjɛl\ while violée is \vjɔ.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31208, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
vielle is recorded at frequency rank #17,035, classified as anoun, pronounced \vjɛl\. violée is at rank #14,173, tagged as averb, pronounced \vjɔ.le\.
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 31208, this pair ranks #305,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of vielle vs violée
Shared letters: eilv. Private to "vielle": -. Private to "violée": oé.
"vielle" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "violée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- vielle ← ivelle · viele · vielel · vilele · vvielle
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "vielle" and "violée" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "vielle" vs "violée" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "vielle" and "violée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "vielle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "violée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #305,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "vielle" and "violée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "violée vs volez". 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 #305,259 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.