Which to use
“villes” is a noun and “vils” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #891
- “villes” frequency rank
- #44,805
- “vils” frequency rank
- 45696
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | villes | vils |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de ville. | Masculin pluriel de vil. |
Same sound, different letters: villes vs vils
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. villes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against vils's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - villes / vils
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: villes and vils carry the same recorded pronunciation, \vil\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45696, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
villes is recorded at frequency rank #891, classified as anoun, pronounced \vil\. vils is at rank #44,805, 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 45696, this pair ranks #200,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of villes vs vils
Shared letters: ilsv. Private to "villes": e. Private to "vils": -.
"villes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "vils" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "villes" for "vils" ever safe?
Frequency check: "villes" vs "vils" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "villes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "vils" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #200,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "villes" and "vils" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vils vs viv". 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 #200,732 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.