peintresvspointuresTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,904
“peintres” frequency rank
#39,462
“pointures” frequency rank
48366
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peintres pointures
Definition Pluriel de peintre. Pluriel de pointure.

Where the eye mixes peintres and pointures

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. peintres runs 8 letters (CVVCCCVC) against pointures's 9 (CVVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
peintres
9 ch
pointures

Why the eye confuses peintres with pointures

A purely visual mix-up. peintres (\pɛ̃tʁ\) and pointures (\pwɛ̃.tyʁ\) 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 48366, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peintres is recorded at frequency rank #8,904, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛ̃tʁ\. pointures is at rank #39,462, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃.tyʁ\.

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 48366, this pair ranks #179,493 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of peintres vs pointures

Shared letters: einprst. Private to "peintres": -. Private to "pointures": ou.

"peintres" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCCVC  ·  "pointures" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peintres ← epintres · peinntres · peinrtes · peinters · peintress · peintrres · peintrse · peinttres
  • pointures ← opintures · piontures · poinntures · pointrues · pointtures · pointuers · pointuress · pointurres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "peintres" and "pointures" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃tʁ\ versus \pwɛ̃.tyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "peintres" or "pointures"?
"peintres" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,904 in our French list, against #39,462 for "pointures". 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 "peintres" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pointures" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #179,493 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peintres" and "pointures" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pointeurs vs pointures". 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 #179,493 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