peintesvspointusWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#19,364
“peintes” frequency rank
#25,768
“pointus” frequency rank
45132
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peintes pointus
Definition Féminin pluriel de peint. Masculin pluriel de pointu.

Where the eye mixes peintes and pointus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
peintes
7 ch
pointus

Visual trap between peintes and pointus

A purely visual mix-up. peintes (\pɛ̃t\) and pointus (\pwɛ̃.ty\) 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 45132, 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\. pointus is at rank #25,768, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pwɛ̃.ty\.

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 45132, this pair ranks #205,140 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of peintes vs pointus

Shared letters: inpst. Private to "peintes": e. Private to "pointus": ou.

"peintes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "pointus" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peintesepintes · peinets · peinntes · peintess · peintse · peinttes · peitnes · penites
  • pointusopintus · piontus · poinntus · pointsu · pointtus · pointuss · poinuts · poitnus

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "peintes" for "pointus" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃t\ versus \pwɛ̃.ty\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "peintes" vs "pointus" - which ranks higher?
"peintes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,364 in our French list, against #25,768 for "pointus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "peintes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pointus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #205,140 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peintes" and "pointus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pintes vs pointus". 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 #205,140 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