panservspensezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,408
“panser” frequency rank
#1,782
“pensez” frequency rank
42190
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature panser pensez
Definition Soigner une plaie ou une blessure ; lui faire un pansement. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de penser.

Same sound, different letters: panser vs pensez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. panser and pensez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
panser
6 ch
pensez

Same sound, different spelling - panser / pensez

This is the hard kind. panser and pensez are pronounced identically (\pɑ̃.se\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42190, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

panser is recorded at frequency rank #40,408, classified as averb, pronounced \pɑ̃.se\. pensez is at rank #1,782, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɑ̃.se\.

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 42190, this pair ranks #227,515 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of panser vs pensez

Shared letters: enps. Private to "panser": ar. Private to "pensez": z.

"panser" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "pensez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • panser ← apnser · panesr · pannser · panserr · pansre · pansser · pasner · pnaser
  • pensez ← epnsez · penesz · pennsez · pensezz · penssez · pensze · pesnez · pnesez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "panser" and "pensez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pɑ̃.se\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "panser" vs "pensez" - which ranks higher?
"pensez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,782 in our French list, against #40,408 for "panser". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "panser" / "pensez". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "panser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pensez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #227,515 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "panser" and "pensez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "panser 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 #227,515 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