payotvsplotWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,519
“payot” frequency rank
#33,836
“plot” frequency rank
66355
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature payot plot
Definition Gadjo, non-gitan. Tronc de cône creux, généralement en plastique et empilable, et servant de marquage au sol de parcours.

Where the eye mixes payot and plot

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
payot
4 ch
plot

Why the eye confuses payot with plot

A purely visual mix-up. payot (\pa.jo\) and plot (\plo\) 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 66355, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

payot is recorded at frequency rank #32,519, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.jo\. plot is at rank #33,836, tagged as anoun, pronounced \plo\.

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 66355, this pair ranks #68,208 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of payot vs plot

Shared letters: opt. Private to "payot": ay. Private to "plot": l.

"payot" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "plot" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • payotapyot · paoyt · payott · payto · payyot · ppayot · pyaot
  • plotlpot · pllot · plott · plto · polt · pplot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "payot" for "plot" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pa.jo\ versus \plo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "payot" or "plot"?
"payot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,519 in our French list, against #33,836 for "plot". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "payot" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,208 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "payot" and "plot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs plot". 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 #68,208 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