Which to use
“pannes” and “pennes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,819
- “pannes” frequency rank
- #41,955
- “pennes” frequency rank
- 60774
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pannes | pennes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de panne (état de ce qui ne fonctionne plus).. | Pluriel de penne (plume…). |
Where the eye mixes pannes and pennes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. pannes and pennes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: pannes vs pennes
A purely visual mix-up. pannes (\pan\) and pennes (\pɛn\) 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 a single letter - a in “pannes” becomes e in “pennes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60774, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pannes is recorded at frequency rank #18,819, classified as anoun, pronounced \pan\. pennes is at rank #41,955, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛn\.
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 60774, this pair ranks #95,832 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pannes vs pennes
Shared letters: enps. Private to "pannes": a. Private to "pennes": -.
"pannes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "pennes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pannes" and "pennes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "pannes" or "pennes"?
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 "pannes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pennes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #95,832 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pannes" and "pennes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pennes vs pètes". 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 #95,832 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.