PQ
\pe.ky\
The verdict
“PQ” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #2,142) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #2,142
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Papier toilette.
Corpus desk
Index FR-pq · PQ · French
PQ · rank #2,142 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #2,142
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-0 0 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH proposé
Nearest frequency peer: proposé (+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 « PQ »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- nation
nation
97,863 corpus weight
- oeuvre
oeuvre
97,862 corpus weight
- PQ
PQ
97,859 corpus weight
- proposé
proposé
97,858 corpus weight
- rapports
rapports
97,857 corpus weight
- relativement
relativement
97,856 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « PQ » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | PQ |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pe.ky\ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #2,142 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « PQ »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for PQ is neighbouring look-alikes ("pu", "PS", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \pe.ky\. Frequency #2,142 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Papier toilette.".
PQ has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pu", "PS", "Pr", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is PQ, spelled P-Q.
Definition
- 1Papier toilette.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how PQ appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Logique inexorable de l’accumulation : « On a toujours besoin d’un (sic) petit pois chez soi » disait une antique publicité – et toujours besoin de PQ, de shampoing, d’huile, de lait UHT, etc. Les récits et films de famine sont insupportables.
Parce que partout sur les réseaux, on stigmatise les gens qui postent des photos de leur jardin en fleurs, les chanteuses qui récitent de la poésie en français et en anglais dans leur sublime appartement ou les écrivaines qui poètisent leur confinement, les collectionneur.ses de pâtes et de PQ, les gens qui blaguent, ceux qui promènent leur chien deux foi…
This word in other languages
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.