Which to use
“pauses” and “puces” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,697
- “pauses” frequency rank
- #12,648
- “puces” frequency rank
- 29345
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pauses | puces |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de pause. | Marché aux puces. |
Where the eye mixes pauses and puces
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between pauses and puces
A purely visual mix-up. pauses (\poz\) and puces (\pys\) 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 29345, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pauses is recorded at frequency rank #16,697, classified as anoun, pronounced \poz\. puces is at rank #12,648, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pys\.
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 29345, this pair ranks #317,257 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of pauses vs puces
Shared letters: epsu. Private to "pauses": a. Private to "puces": c.
"pauses" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "puces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pauses" and "puces" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "pauses" or "puces" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "pauses" and "puces" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "pauses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "puces" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #317,257 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pauses" and "puces" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pauses 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 #317,257 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.