panelvspanseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#14,751
“panel” frequency rank
#36,987
“panse” frequency rank
51738
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature panel panse
Definition Échantillon de population censé être représentatif d’une population globale, en matière d’habitudes de consommation. Ventre.

Where the eye mixes panel and panse

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

5 ch
panel
5 ch
panse

Why the eye confuses panel with panse

A purely visual mix-up. panel (\pa.nɛl\) and panse (\pɑ̃s\) 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 51738, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

panel is recorded at frequency rank #14,751, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.nɛl\. panse is at rank #36,987, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɑ̃s\.

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 51738, this pair ranks #152,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of panel vs panse

Shared letters: aenp. Private to "panel": l. Private to "panse": s.

"panel" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "panse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • panelapnel · paenl · panell · panle · pannel · pnael · ppanel
  • panseapnse · pansse · pasne · pnase · ppanse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "panel" and "panse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pa.nɛl\ versus \pɑ̃s\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "panel" or "panse" show up more?
"panel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,751 in our French list, against #36,987 for "panse". 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 "panel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "panse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #152,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "panel" and "panse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "panse vs Panzer". 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 #152,830 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