peine

/\pɛn\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#483

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

peine is aFrenchnoun. It means: Punition, sanction ou châtiment infligé(e) pour une faute commise, pour un acte jugé répréhensible ou coupable, et en particulier punition pour une infraction à la loi et prononcée par un jugement. Pronounced \pɛn\. It ranks #483 in French word frequency. Often confused with pen and pie.

Key facts for peine
PropertyValue
Headwordpeine
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pɛn\
Letters5
Frequency rank#483
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of peine in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for peine is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pɛn\. Corpus data places it at rank #483 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for peine, with forms such as "epine", "peien", and "peinne". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pen", "pie", "pin", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is peine, spelled P-E-I-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Punition, sanction ou châtiment infligé(e) pour une faute commise, pour un acte jugé répréhensible ou coupable, et en particulier punition pour une infraction à la loi et prononcée par un jugement.
  2. 2
    Sanction de l’Église pour une faute morale.
  3. 3
    Châtiment après la mort pour expier ses péchés et ses fautes durant sa vie terrestre.
  4. 4
    Souffrance physique ou morale, sentiment de quelque mal dans le corps ou dans l’esprit.
  5. 5
    Douleur, affliction, chagrin, déplaisir.
  6. 6
    Souci, embarras.
  7. 7
    Travail ; fatigue ; effort qui coûte.
  8. 8
    Difficultés et obstacles que l’on trouve à quelque chose.
  9. 9
    Répugnance d’esprit qu’on a à dire ou à faire quelque chose.
  10. 10
    Salaire d’un artisan.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: epine,peien,peinne,penie,piene,ppeine

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for peine

Misspelling Variants of "peine"

epine5peien5peinne6penie5piene5ppeine6
Misspelling Variants of "peine"

Frequency rank: #483 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "peine"?
"peine" is spelled P-E-I-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pɛn\.
What does "peine" mean?
As a noun, "peine" means: Punition, sanction ou châtiment infligé(e) pour une faute commise, pour un acte jugé répréhensible ou coupable, et en particulier punition pour une infraction à la loi et prononcée par un jugement.
What words are commonly confused with "peine"?
"peine" is commonly confused with "pen", "pie", "pin". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "peine"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "peine" is \pɛn\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "peine" come from?
"peine" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.