feintevsflintConfusable pair

Which to use

“feinte” and “flint” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#22,856
“feinte” frequency rank
#34,540
“flint” frequency rank
57396
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feinte flint
Definition Action de feindre. Verre en cristal servant avec le crown-glass à faire les lentilles achromatiques des microscopes ; il est constitué par trois atomes de quadrisilicate de plomb et deux atomes de quadrisilicate de potasse.

Where the eye mixes feinte and flint

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
feinte
5 ch
flint

Visual trap between feinte and flint

A purely visual mix-up. feinte (\fɛ̃t\) and flint (\flint\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57396, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feinte is recorded at frequency rank #22,856, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɛ̃t\. flint is at rank #34,540, tagged as anoun, pronounced \flint\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 57396, this pair ranks #115,301 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of feinte vs flint

Shared letters: fint. Private to "feinte": e. Private to "flint": l.

"feinte" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "flint" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feinteefinte · feinet · feinnte · feintte · feitne · fenite · ffeinte · fiente
  • flintfflint · filnt · flinnt · flintt · flitn · fllint · flnit · lfint

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "feinte" and "flint" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\fɛ̃t\ versus \flint\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "feinte" or "flint" show up more?
"feinte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,856 in our French list, against #34,540 for "flint". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "feinte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "flint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #115,301 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "feinte" and "flint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flint vs foins". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #115,301 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list