Which to use
“villes” and “voles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #891
- “villes” frequency rank
- #36,652
- “voles” frequency rank
- 37543
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | villes | voles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de ville. | Pluriel de vole. |
Where the eye mixes villes and voles
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. villes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against voles's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses villes with voles
A purely visual mix-up. villes (\vil\) and voles (\vɔl\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37543, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
villes is recorded at frequency rank #891, classified as anoun, pronounced \vil\. voles is at rank #36,652, tagged as anoun, pronounced \vɔl\.
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 37543, this pair ranks #261,750 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of villes vs voles
Shared letters: elsv. Private to "villes": i. Private to "voles": o.
"villes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "voles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "villes" and "voles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "villes" or "voles" show up more?
After this comparison
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 "voles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #261,750 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "villes" and "voles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voles vs Voss". 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 #261,750 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.