Which to use
“peinture” and “pointure” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,049
- “peinture” frequency rank
- #27,914
- “pointure” frequency rank
- 29963
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | peinture | pointure |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Dimension exprimée en point d’un objet quelconque. |
Where the eye mixes peinture and pointure
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. peinture and pointure follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses peinture with pointure
A purely visual mix-up. peinture (\pɛ̃.tyʁ\) and pointure (\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 a single letter - e in “peinture” becomes o in “pointure”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29963, 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\. pointure is at rank #27,914, 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 29963, this pair ranks #313,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of peinture vs pointure
Shared letters: einprtu. Private to "peinture": -. Private to "pointure": o.
"peinture" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV · "pointure" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "peinture" for "pointure" ever safe?
Frequency check: "peinture" vs "pointure" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
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 "pointure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #313,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "peinture" and "pointure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pointeurs vs pointure". 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 #313,345 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.