vilarvsviralWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,858
“vilar” frequency rank
#29,189
“viral” frequency rank
78047
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vilar viral
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du présent du verbe vilá (« détruire »). Relatif aux virus.

Where the eye mixes vilar and viral

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

5 ch
vilar
5 ch
viral

Look-alike desk: vilar vs viral

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vilar is \viˈlar\ while viral is \vi.ʁal\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78047, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vilar is recorded at frequency rank #48,858, classified as averb, pronounced \viˈlar\. viral is at rank #29,189, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vi.ʁal\.

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 78047, this pair ranks #26,767 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vilar vs viral

Shared letters: ailrv. Private to "vilar": -. Private to "viral": -.

"vilar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "viral" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vilarivlar · vialr · vilarr · villar · vilra · vliar · vvilar
  • viralivral · viarl · virall · virla · virral · vrial · vviral

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vilar" for "viral" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vilar" is a verb and "viral" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "vilar" or "viral"?
"viral" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,189 in our French list, against #48,858 for "vilar". 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 "vilar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "viral" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,767 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vilar" and "viral" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vigan vs vilar". 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 #26,767 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