pâturevspiqûreWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,495
“pâture” frequency rank
#18,280
“piqûre” frequency rank
47775
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pâture piqûre
Definition Nourriture des bêtes, des oiseaux, des poissons. Petite blessure que fait une chose ou un animal qui pique.

Where the eye mixes pâture and piqûre

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

6 ch
pâture
6 ch
piqûre

Visual trap between pâture and piqûre

A purely visual mix-up. pâture (\pa.tyʁ\) and piqûre (\pi.kyʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47775, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pâture is recorded at frequency rank #29,495, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.tyʁ\. piqûre is at rank #18,280, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.kyʁ\.

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 47775, this pair ranks #184,251 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pâture vs piqûre

Shared letters: epr. Private to "pâture": tuâ. Private to "piqûre": iqû.

"pâture" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "piqûre" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pâture" and "piqûre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pa.tyʁ\ versus \pi.kyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pâture" or "piqûre"?
"piqûre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,280 in our French list, against #29,495 for "pâture". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "pâture" and "piqûre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pâture" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piqûre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #184,251 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pâture" and "piqûre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parures vs pâture". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #184,251 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