pausevspieuseConfusable pair

Quick tell: pause is a noun, pieuse is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pause” is a noun and “pieuse” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,730
“pause” frequency rank
#29,079
“pieuse” frequency rank
31809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pause pieuse
Definition Suspension ou interruption momentanée d’une action. Féminin singulier de pieux.

Where the eye mixes pause and pieuse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pause
6 ch
pieuse

Look-alike desk: pause vs pieuse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pause is \poz\ while pieuse is \pjøz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pause is recorded at frequency rank #2,730, classified as anoun, pronounced \poz\. pieuse is at rank #29,079, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pjøz\.

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 31809, this pair ranks #301,419 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pause vs pieuse

Shared letters: epsu. Private to "pause": a. Private to "pieuse": i.

"pause" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "pieuse" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pauseapuse · pasue · paues · pausse · ppause · puase
  • pieuseipeuse · peiuse · piesue · pieues · pieusse · piuese · ppieuse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pause" for "pieuse" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pause" is a noun and "pieuse" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pause" or "pieuse"?
"pause" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,730 in our French list, against #29,079 for "pieuse". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pause" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pieuse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #301,419 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pause" and "pieuse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pieuse vs pieuses". 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 #301,419 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