padouevsparoleWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,901
“padoue” frequency rank
#1,005
“parole” frequency rank
28906
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature padoue parole
Definition Poule domestique européenne, de taille moyenne ou naine, au port fier et relevé avec une grande huppe pleine et une barbe et des favoris bien développés. Faculté naturelle de parler.

Where the eye mixes padoue and parole

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. padoue (CVCVVV) and parole (CVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
padoue
6 ch
parole

Look-alike desk: padoue vs parole

A purely visual mix-up. padoue (\pa.du\) and parole (\pa.ʁɔl\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28906, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

padoue is recorded at frequency rank #27,901, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.du\. parole is at rank #1,005, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.ʁɔl\.

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 28906, this pair ranks #319,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of padoue vs parole

Shared letters: aeop. Private to "padoue": du. Private to "parole": lr.

"padoue" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV  ·  "parole" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • padoue ← apdoue · paddoue · padoeu · paduoe · paodue · pdaoue · ppadoue
  • parole ← aprole · paorle · parloe · paroel · parolle · parrole · pparole · praole

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "padoue" for "parole" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pa.du\ versus \pa.ʁɔl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "padoue" or "parole"?
"parole" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,005 in our French list, against #27,901 for "padoue". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "padoue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "parole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #319,904 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "padoue" and "parole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "padoue vs pasque". 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 #319,904 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