Which to use
“peine” is a noun and “puisé” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #483
- “peine” frequency rank
- #32,135
- “puisé” frequency rank
- 32618
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | peine | puisé |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Participe passé masculin singulier de puiser. |
Where the eye mixes peine and puisé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. peine and puisé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between peine and puisé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: peine is \pɛn\ while puisé is \pɥi.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32618, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
peine is recorded at frequency rank #483, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛn\. puisé is at rank #32,135, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɥi.ze\.
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 32618, this pair ranks #296,107 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of peine vs puisé
Shared letters: ip. Private to "peine": en. Private to "puisé": sué.
"peine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "puisé" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- peine ← epine · peien · peinne · penie · piene · ppeine
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "peine" and "puisé" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "peine" or "puisé"?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "peine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "puisé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #296,107 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "peine" and "puisé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs puisé". 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 #296,107 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.