peinsvspoingWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: peins is a verb, poing is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“peins” is a verb and “poing” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,098
“peins” frequency rank
#6,541
“poing” frequency rank
54639
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peins poing
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de peindre. Main fermée.

Where the eye mixes peins and poing

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. peins and poing follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
peins
5 ch
poing

Look-alike desk: peins vs poing

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: peins is \pɛ̃\ while poing is \pwɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54639, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peins is recorded at frequency rank #48,098, classified as averb, pronounced \pɛ̃\. poing is at rank #6,541, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃\.

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 54639, this pair ranks #132,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of peins vs poing

Shared letters: inp. Private to "peins": es. Private to "poing": go.

"peins" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "poing" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peinsepins · peinns · peinss · peisn · piens · ppeins
  • poingoping · piong · poign · poingg · poinng · ponig · ppoing

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "peins" and "poing" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "peins" is a verb and "poing" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "peins" or "poing"?
"poing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,541 in our French list, against #48,098 for "peins". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "peins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #132,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peins" and "poing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peins vs pètes". 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 #132,658 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