peinevspineTell them apart

Which to use

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

#483
“peine” frequency rank
#25,437
“pine” frequency rank
25920
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peine pine
Definition Punition, sanction ou châtiment infligé(e) pour une faute commise, pour un acte jugé répréhensible ou coupable, et en particulier punition pour une infraction à la loi et prononcée par un jugement. Sexe masculin, membre viril, pénis, phallus, verge, vit.

Where the eye mixes peine and pine

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

5 ch
peine
4 ch
pine

Visual trap between peine and pine

A purely visual mix-up. peine (\pɛn\) and pine (\pin\) 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 25920, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peine is recorded at frequency rank #483, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛn\. pine is at rank #25,437, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pin\.

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 25920, this pair ranks #338,115 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of peine vs pine

Shared letters: einp. Private to "peine": -. Private to "pine": -.

"peine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "pine" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peineepine · peien · peinne · penie · piene · ppeine
  • pineipne · pien · pinne · pnie · ppine

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "peine" and "pine" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛn\ versus \pin\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "peine" vs "pine" - which ranks higher?
"peine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #483 in our French list, against #25,437 for "pine". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "peine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #338,115 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peine" and "pine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pine vs priée". 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 #338,115 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