Which to use
“villes” is a noun and “violés” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #891
- “villes” frequency rank
- #36,651
- “violés” frequency rank
- 37542
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | villes | violés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de ville. | Participe passé masculin pluriel de violer. |
Where the eye mixes villes and violés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. villes (CVCCVC) and violés (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: villes vs violés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: villes is \vil\ while violés 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 37542, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
villes is recorded at frequency rank #891, classified as anoun, pronounced \vil\. violés is at rank #36,651, 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 37542, this pair ranks #261,757 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of villes vs violés
Shared letters: ilsv. Private to "villes": e. Private to "violés": oé.
"villes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "violés" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- villes ← ivlles · vilels · viles · villess · villse · vliles · vvilles
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "villes" for "violés" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "villes" or "violés" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "villes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "violés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #261,757 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "villes" and "violés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "violés vs virées". 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 #261,757 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.