peintesvspetitesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#19,364
“peintes” frequency rank
#948
“petites” frequency rank
20312
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peintes petites
Definition Féminin pluriel de peint. Féminin pluriel de petit.

Where the eye mixes peintes and petites

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
peintes
7 ch
petites

Why the eye confuses peintes with petites

A purely visual mix-up. peintes (\pɛ̃t\) and petites (\pə.tit\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20312, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peintes is recorded at frequency rank #19,364, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛ̃t\. petites is at rank #948, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pə.tit\.

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 20312, this pair ranks #368,907 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of peintes vs petites

Shared letters: eipst. Private to "peintes": n. Private to "petites": -.

"peintes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "petites" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peintesepintes · peinets · peinntes · peintess · peintse · peinttes · peitnes · penites
  • petiteseptites · peittes · petiets · petitess · petitse · petittes · petties · pettites

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "peintes" and "petites" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃t\ versus \pə.tit\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "peintes" or "petites" show up more?
"petites" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #948 in our French list, against #19,364 for "peintes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "peintes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "petites" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #368,907 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peintes" and "petites" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peintes 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 #368,907 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