patinevspavieWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#30,301
“patine” frequency rank
#32,518
“pavie” frequency rank
62819
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature patine pavie
Definition Vert-de-gris se formant sur les objets en cuivre ou en bronze. Sorte de pêche dont la chair est adhérente au noyau.

Where the eye mixes patine and pavie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. patine runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against pavie's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
patine
5 ch
pavie

Look-alike desk: patine vs pavie

A purely visual mix-up. patine (\pa.tin\) and pavie (\pa.vi\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62819, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

patine is recorded at frequency rank #30,301, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.tin\. pavie is at rank #32,518, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.vi\.

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 62819, this pair ranks #85,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of patine vs pavie

Shared letters: aeip. Private to "patine": nt. Private to "pavie": v.

"patine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "pavie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • patine ← aptine · paitne · patien · patinne · patnie · pattine · ppatine · ptaine
  • pavie ← apvie · paive · pavei · pavvie · ppavie · pvaie

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "patine" and "pavie" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pa.tin\ versus \pa.vi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "patine" vs "pavie" - which ranks higher?
"patine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,301 in our French list, against #32,518 for "pavie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "patine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pavie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "patine" and "pavie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palin vs pavie". 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 #85,129 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