pus
\py\
The verdict
“pus” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #13,881) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #13,881
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Matière liquide, épaisse, blanchâtre, qui se forme dans les abcès, qui sort des plaies et des ulcères.
Corpus desk
Index FR-pus · pus · French
pus · rank #13,881 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #13,881
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH psychique
Nearest frequency peer: psychique (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “pus”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- prépa
prépa
86,123 corpus weight
- prévoyait
prévoyait
86,122 corpus weight
- psychique
psychique
86,121 corpus weight
- pus
pus
86,120 corpus weight
- pyjama
pyjama
86,119 corpus weight
- périphériqu…
périphériques
86,118 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “pus” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | pus |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \py\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #13,881 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “pus” se place dans la fréquence du français
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for pus is neighbouring look-alikes ("PV", "Py", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \py\. Frequency #13,881 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Matière liquide, épaisse, blanchâtre, qui se forme dans les abcès, qui sort des plaies et des ulcères.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for pus, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PV", "Py", "px", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is pus, spelled P-U-S.
Definition
- 1Matière liquide, épaisse, blanchâtre, qui se forme dans les abcès, qui sort des plaies et des ulcères.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pus appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mais outre ces leucocytes, il y a dans le pus sécrété par les plaies un bactérien qui possède aussi la propriété de provoquer la formation du pus en plus grande quantité, quand il est introduit dans les tissus vivants ; […].
Le cryptocoque est cultivable à 38°, en ensemençant, avec du pus aseptique d’abcès, de la gélose au crottin de cheval recouverte d’une macération de ganglions du même animal : […].
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pus", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "pus". Here's where to go from here.
- "pus" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "PV". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #13,881 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "P" letter cohort. P–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.