plu

\ply\

/\ply\/ verb

The verdict

“plu” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #5,380) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#5,380
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Participe passé masculin singulier de pleuvoir.

Corpus desk

Index FR-plu · plu · French

plu · rank #5,380 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #5,380
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH planche

Nearest frequency peer: planche (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « plu »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « plu » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

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).

plu vs pu
67% similar
plu vs PS
0% similar
plu vs PQ
0% similar

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

Key facts for plu
PropertyValue
Headwordplu
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\ply\
Letters3
Frequency rank#5,380
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « plu »

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

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « planche » (#5,379), « plume » (#5,381), « perds » (#5,378). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « plu » est au #5,380. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for plu is neighbouring look-alikes ("pu", "PS", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced \ply\. Frequency #5,380 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Participe passé masculin singulier de pleuvoir.".

Zero misspellings are on record for plu in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pu", "PS", "PQ", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is plu, spelled P-L-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Participe passé masculin singulier de pleuvoir.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Il n’aurait pas plu, ou l’averse eût été si menue qu’on n’a qu’une crainte : mouiller son chapeau, si bien qu’on l’ôte et que l’instituteur a maintenant trois colis au lieu de deux.
  2. Il a tellement plu cet été que, dans certains jardins, il a poussé des fruits de mer.

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 "plu"?
"plu" is spelled P-L-U. The IPA pronunciation is \ply\.
What does "plu" mean?
As a verb, "plu" means: Participe passé masculin singulier de pleuvoir.
What words are commonly confused with "plu"?
"plu" is commonly confused with "pu", "PS", "PQ". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "plu"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "plu" is \ply\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "plu" come from?
"plu" 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 "plu", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list