peinevspingTell them apart

Which to use

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

#483
“peine” frequency rank
#9,214
“ping” frequency rank
9697
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peine ping
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. Onomatopée.

Where the eye mixes peine and ping

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

5 ch
peine
4 ch
ping

Visual trap between peine and ping

A purely visual mix-up. peine (\pɛn\) and ping (\piŋ\) 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 9697, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peine is recorded at frequency rank #483, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛn\. ping is at rank #9,214, tagged as anoun, pronounced \piŋ\.

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 9697, this pair ranks #415,756 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of peine vs ping

Shared letters: inp. Private to "peine": e. Private to "ping": g.

"peine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "ping" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peineepine · peien · peinne · penie · piene · ppeine
  • pingipng · pign · pingg · pinng · pnig · pping

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "peine" and "ping" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɛn\ versus \piŋ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "peine" or "ping" show up more?
"peine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #483 in our French list, against #9,214 for "ping". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "peine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ping" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #415,756 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peine" and "ping" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ping vs pio". 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 #415,756 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