paruesvspiquésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: parues is a verb, piqués is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“parues” is a verb and “piqués” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,948
“parues” frequency rank
#48,104
“piqués” frequency rank
81052
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature parues piqués
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe paraître (ou paraitre). Masculin pluriel de piqué.

Where the eye mixes parues and piqués

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. parues and piqués follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
parues
6 ch
piqués

Why the eye confuses parues with piqués

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: parues is \pa.ʁy\ while piqués is \pi.ke\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81052, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

parues is recorded at frequency rank #32,948, classified as averb, pronounced \pa.ʁy\. piqués is at rank #48,104, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pi.ke\.

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 81052, this pair ranks #19,567 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of parues vs piqués

Shared letters: psu. Private to "parues": aer. Private to "piqués": iqé.

"parues" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "piqués" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • parues ← aprues · pareus · parrues · paruess · paruse · paures · pparues · praues

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "parues" and "piqués" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "parues" is a verb and "piqués" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "parues" or "piqués"?
"parues" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,948 in our French list, against #48,104 for "piqués". 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 "parues" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piqués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,567 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "parues" and "piqués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pieuses vs piqués". 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 #19,567 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