villesvsvoiléesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#891
“villes” frequency rank
#18,366
“voilées” frequency rank
19257
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature villes voilées
Definition Pluriel de ville. Féminin pluriel de voilé.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set villes and voilées apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
villes
7 ch
voilées

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: villes is \vil\ while voilées is \vwa.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19257, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

villes is recorded at frequency rank #891, classified as anoun, pronounced \vil\. voilées is at rank #18,366, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vwa.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 19257, this pair ranks #374,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of villes vs voilées

Shared letters: eilsv. Private to "villes": -. Private to "voilées": .

"villes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "voilées" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • villesivlles · vilels · viles · villess · villse · vliles · vvilles

Frequency comparison

villes#891
voilées#18,366

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "villes" and "voilées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "villes" is a noun and "voilées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "villes" or "voilées"?
"villes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #891 in our French list, against #18,366 for "voilées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering villes vs voilées

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “villes”; for an adjective, it's “voilées”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “villes” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list