panicvspaniqueWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#47,494
“panic” frequency rank
#5,056
“panique” frequency rank
52550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature panic panique
Definition Non usuel de Echinochloa crus-galli, plante herbacée, cespiteuse, annuelle , de la famille des Poacées (graminées), parfois cultivée comme céréale ou comme plante fourragère. Qui a un rapport avec le dieu Pan ou les forces de la nature.

Same sound, different letters: panic vs panique

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

5 ch
panic
7 ch
panique

Ear matches; page differs - panic and panique

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: panic and panique carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pa.nik\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

panic is recorded at frequency rank #47,494, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.nik\. panique is at rank #5,056, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pa.nik\.

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 52550, this pair ranks #146,964 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of panic vs panique

Shared letters: ainp. Private to "panic": c. Private to "panique": equ.

"panic" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "panique" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • panicapnic · painc · panci · panicc · pannic · pnaic · ppanic
  • paniqueapnique · painque · paniqeu · paniqque · paniuqe · pannique · panqiue · pnaique

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "panic" and "panique" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "panic" is a noun and "panique" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "panic" or "panique" show up more?
"panique" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,056 in our French list, against #47,494 for "panic". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"panic" and "panique" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "panic" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "panique" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,964 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "panic" and "panique" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palin vs panic". 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 #146,964 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