panelvspayésConfusable pair

Quick tell: panel is a noun, payés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“panel” is a noun and “payés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,751
“panel” frequency rank
#5,591
“payés” frequency rank
20342
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature panel payés
Definition Échantillon de population censé être représentatif d’une population globale, en matière d’habitudes de consommation. Masculin pluriel de payé.

Where the eye mixes panel and payés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
panel
5 ch
payés

Visual trap between panel and payés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: panel is \pa.nɛl\ while payés is \pɛ.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20342, 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\. payés is at rank #5,591, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛ.je\.

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 20342, this pair ranks #368,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of panel vs payés

Shared letters: ap. Private to "panel": eln. Private to "payés": syé.

"panel" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "payés" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • panelapnel · paenl · panell · panle · pannel · pnael · ppanel

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "panel" and "payés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "panel" is a noun and "payés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "panel" or "payés" show up more?
"payés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,591 in our French list, against #14,751 for "panel". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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 "payés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #368,755 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "panel" and "payés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "panel vs parl". 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 #368,755 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