peinturevspictureWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,049
“peinture” frequency rank
#27,908
“picture” frequency rank
29957
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peinture picture
Definition Substance pigmentée appliquée en couche à l’aide d’un pinceau, d’un rouleau ou par projection sur une surface à colorer ou à protéger. Image.

Where the eye mixes peinture and picture

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. peinture runs 8 letters (CVVCCVCV) against picture's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
peinture
7 ch
picture

Visual trap between peinture and picture

A purely visual mix-up. peinture (\pɛ̃.tyʁ\) and picture (\ˈpɪk.tʃɚ\) 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 29957, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peinture is recorded at frequency rank #2,049, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛ̃.tyʁ\. picture is at rank #27,908, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈpɪk.tʃɚ\.

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 29957, this pair ranks #313,386 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of peinture vs picture

Shared letters: eiprtu. Private to "peinture": n. Private to "picture": c.

"peinture" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV  ·  "picture" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peinture ← epinture · peinnture · peintrue · peintture · peintuer · peinturre · peinutre · peitnure
  • picture ← ipcture · pciture · piccture · pictrue · pictture · pictuer · picturre · picutre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "peinture" and "picture" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃.tyʁ\ versus \ˈpɪk.tʃɚ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "peinture" vs "picture" - which ranks higher?
"peinture" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,049 in our French list, against #27,908 for "picture". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "peinture" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "picture" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #313,386 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peinture" and "picture" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pictural vs picture". 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 #313,386 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