pénal
\pe.nal\
The verdict
“pénal” has 8 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #6,735. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #6,735
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui concerne les délits et les peines.
Corpus desk
Index FR-penal · pénal · French
pénal · rank #6,735 · 8 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,735
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH proviennent
Nearest frequency peer: proviennent (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « pénal »
Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin
- privilège
privilège
93,269 corpus weight
- profitez
profitez
93,268 corpus weight
- proviennent
proviennent
93,267 corpus weight
- pénal
pénal
93,266 corpus weight
- pénale
pénale
93,265 corpus weight
- quarantaine
quarantaine
93,264 corpus weight
What this shows « pénal » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pénal |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \pe.nal\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,735 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « pénal »
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around pénal (IPA \pe.nal\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #6,735 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Qui concerne les délits et les peines.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for pénal, with forms such as "penal", "pnéal", and "ppénal". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PNL", "pend", "penn", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is pénal, spelled P-É-N-A-L.
Definition
- 1Qui concerne les délits et les peines.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pénal appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Une des pensées fondamentales de l'Ancien Régime avait été l'emploi de la procédure pénale pour ruiner tous les pouvoirs qui faisaient obstacle à la royauté. Il semble que, dans toutes les sociétés primitives, le droit pénal ait commencé par être une protection accordée au chef et à quelques privilégiés […].
Le non-paiement des cotisations sociales est constitutif d'infraction pénale dans le chef de l’employeur, ou de ses préposés et mandataires qui ont la responsabilité du paiement des cotisations.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- penal
- pnéal
- ppénal
- péanl
- pénall
- pénla
- pénnal
- épnal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pénal - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "pénal"?
What does "pénal" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "pénal"?
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pénal", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).