vigievsvirilWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: vigie is a noun, viril is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vigie” is a noun and “viril” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,094
“vigie” frequency rank
#20,889
“viril” frequency rank
58983
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vigie viril
Definition Sentinelle, marin qui surveille les alentours. Qui appartient à l’homme, en tant que mâle.

Where the eye mixes vigie and viril

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vigie (CVCVV) and viril (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
vigie
5 ch
viril

Look-alike desk: vigie vs viril

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vigie is \vi.ʒi\ while viril is \vi.ʁil\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58983, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vigie is recorded at frequency rank #38,094, classified as anoun, pronounced \vi.ʒi\. viril is at rank #20,889, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vi.ʁil\.

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 58983, this pair ranks #105,765 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vigie vs viril

Shared letters: iv. Private to "vigie": eg. Private to "viril": lr.

"vigie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "viril" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vigie ← ivgie · vgiie · vigei · viggie · viige · vvigie
  • viril ← ivril · viirl · virill · virli · virril · vriil · vviril

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "vigie" and "viril" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vigie" is a noun and "viril" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vigie" or "viril"?
"viril" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,889 in our French list, against #38,094 for "vigie". 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 "vigie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "viril" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,765 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vigie" and "viril" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vigan vs vigie". 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 #105,765 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