pavéesvsplacéesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#41,952
“pavées” frequency rank
#9,533
“placées” frequency rank
51485
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pavées placées
Definition Féminin pluriel de pavé. Féminin pluriel de placé.

Where the eye mixes pavées and placées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
pavées
7 ch
placées

Look-alike desk: pavées vs placées

A purely visual mix-up. pavées (\pa.ve\) and placées (\pla.se\) 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 51485, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pavées is recorded at frequency rank #41,952, classified as anadj, pronounced \pa.ve\. placées is at rank #9,533, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pla.se\.

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 51485, this pair ranks #154,632 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pavées vs placées

Shared letters: aepsé. Private to "pavées": v. Private to "placées": cl.

"pavées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "placées" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pavées" and "placées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pa.ve\ versus \pla.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "pavées" or "placées" show up more?
"placées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,533 in our French list, against #41,952 for "pavées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pavées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "placées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #154,632 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pavées" and "placées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pactes vs pavées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #154,632 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