WillemvswillisWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Willem is a name, willis is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Willem” is a name and “willis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,863
“Willem” frequency rank
#23,417
“willis” frequency rank
54280
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Willem willis
Definition Nom de famille. Jeunes filles condamnées, d’après une légende de Bohême, à sortir, après leur mort, du tombeau et à danser toute la nuit.

Letter map: Willem vs willis

Shared letters muted; letters that set Willem and willis apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Willem and willis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
Willem
6 ch
willis

Grammar separator: Willem vs willis

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Willem is aname and willisanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54280, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Willem is recorded at frequency rank #30,863, classified as aname. willis is at rank #23,417, tagged as anoun, pronounced \wil.lis\.

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 54280, this pair ranks #135,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Willem vs willis

Shared letters: ilw. Private to "Willem": em. Private to "willis": s.

"Willem" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "willis" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Willem ← iwllem · wilelm · wilem · willemm · willme · wlilem · wwillem
  • willis ← iwllis · wilils · wilis · williss · willsi · wlilis · wwillis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Willem" and "willis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Willem" is a name and "willis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Willem" or "willis" show up more?
"willis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,417 in our French list, against #30,863 for "Willem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Willem" and "willis".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Willem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "willis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #135,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Willem" and "willis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wallet vs Willem". 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 #135,088 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