penny

\pɛ.ni\

/\pɛ.ni\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“penny” has 6 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #22,026. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#22,026
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
6
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pièce de monnaie au Royaume-Uni, qui a la valeur d’un centième d’une livre depuis la réforme monétaire de 1971, et qui avait la valeur d’un douzième d’un shilling, soit 1/240 d’une livre.

Corpus desk

Index FR-penny · penny · French

penny · rank #22,026 · 6 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #22,026
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 6 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH payantes

Nearest frequency peer: payantes (-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 « penny »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « penny » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

penny vs pony
60% similar
penny vs pensé
60% similar
penny vs pente
60% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for penny
PropertyValue
Headwordpenny
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pɛ.ni\
Letters5
Frequency rank#22,026
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « penny »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.pennyse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « payantes » (#22,025), « percussion » (#22,027), « pastel » (#22,024). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « penny » est au #22,026. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 6 spelling variants around penny (IPA \pɛ.ni\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #22,026 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for penny, with forms such as "epnny", "pennyy", and "peny". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pony", "pensé", "pente", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is penny, spelled P-E-N-N-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Pièce de monnaie au Royaume-Uni, qui a la valeur d’un centième d’une livre depuis la réforme monétaire de 1971, et qui avait la valeur d’un douzième d’un shilling, soit 1/240 d’une livre.
  2. 2
    Valeur de cette pièce.
  3. 3
    Pièce de monnaie du cent, qui a la valeur d’un centième d’un dollar.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how penny appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Pas un sequin, pas un penny d’argent, pas un sou ; puisse le Dieu d’Abraham me secourir ! dit le juif se tordant les mains.
  2. Il tira une poignée de monnaie et l’examina : trois pennies, une pièce de six pence et une d’un shilling.

Synonyms

cennesoucenne noiresou noir

This word in other languages

penny(English)penique(Español)Penny(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • epnny
  • pennyy
  • peny
  • penyn
  • pneny
  • ppenny

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of penny - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

epnny2pennyy1peny1penyn2pneny2ppenny1
Edit distance from "penny"

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 "penny"?
"penny" is spelled P-E-N-N-Y. The IPA pronunciation is \pɛ.ni\.
What does "penny" mean?
As a noun, "penny" means: Pièce de monnaie au Royaume-Uni, qui a la valeur d’un centième d’une livre depuis la réforme monétaire de 1971, et qui avait la valeur d’un douzième d’un shilling, soit 1/240 d’une livre.
What words are commonly confused with "penny"?
"penny" is commonly confused with "pony", "pensé", "pente". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "penny"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "penny" is \pɛ.ni\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "penny" come from?
"penny" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "penny", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

norma#22,016naïfs#22,011moult#22,008monet#22,004

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).

kung6 variantsJohann6 variantsrimes6 variantsrolls6 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list