viganvsvilarConfusable pair

Quick tell: vigan is a noun, vilar is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vigan” is a noun and “vilar” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#50,000
“vigan” frequency rank
#48,858
“vilar” frequency rank
98858
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vigan vilar
Definition Gros drap de laine foulée, de faible qualité, ni tondu, ni peigné, il contenait 960 fils de chaîne pour une largeur de 3/4 d'aune. Troisième personne du singulier du présent du verbe vilá (« détruire »).

Where the eye mixes vigan and vilar

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vigan and vilar follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
vigan
5 ch
vilar

Look-alike desk: vigan vs vilar

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vigan is \vi.ɡɑ̃\ while vilar is \viˈlar\. 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 98858, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vigan is recorded at frequency rank #50,000, classified as anoun, pronounced \vi.ɡɑ̃\. vilar is at rank #48,858, tagged as averb, pronounced \viˈlar\.

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 98858, this pair ranks #58 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vigan vs vilar

Shared letters: aiv. Private to "vigan": gn. Private to "vilar": lr.

"vigan" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "vilar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vigan ← ivgan · vgian · viagn · vigann · viggan · vigna · vvigan
  • vilar ← ivlar · vialr · vilarr · villar · vilra · vliar · vvilar

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vigan" and "vilar" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vigan" is a noun and "vilar" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vigan" vs "vilar" - which ranks higher?
"vilar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48,858 in our French list, against #50,000 for "vigan". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vigan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vilar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vigan" and "vilar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vigan vs vlan". 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 #58 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