pagnevspoigneWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#39,435
“pagne” frequency rank
#34,255
“poigne” frequency rank
73690
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pagne poigne
Definition Morceau de tissu ou de matière végétale tressée avec lequel une personne se couvre les hanches jusqu’aux genoux. La force du poignet.

Where the eye mixes pagne and poigne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pagne runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against poigne's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pagne
6 ch
poigne

Look-alike desk: pagne vs poigne

A purely visual mix-up. pagne (\paɲ\) and poigne (\pwaɲ\) 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 73690, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pagne is recorded at frequency rank #39,435, classified as anoun, pronounced \paɲ\. poigne is at rank #34,255, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwaɲ\.

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 73690, this pair ranks #39,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pagne vs poigne

Shared letters: egnp. Private to "pagne": a. Private to "poigne": io.

"pagne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "poigne" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pagneapgne · pagen · paggne · pagnne · pange · pgane · ppagne
  • poigneopigne · piogne · pogine · poigen · poiggne · poignne · poinge · ppoigne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pagne" for "poigne" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\paɲ\ versus \pwaɲ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pagne" vs "poigne" - which ranks higher?
"poigne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,255 in our French list, against #39,435 for "pagne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "pagne" and "poigne" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pagne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poigne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pagne" and "poigne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pagne vs plaigne". 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 #39,608 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