peinturevspointuresWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,049
“peinture” frequency rank
#39,462
“pointures” frequency rank
41511
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peinture pointures
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. Pluriel de pointure.

Where the eye mixes peinture and pointures

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

8 ch
peinture
9 ch
pointures

Visual trap between peinture and pointures

A purely visual mix-up. peinture (\pɛ̃.tyʁ\) 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 41511, 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\. 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 41511, this pair ranks #232,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of peinture vs pointures

Shared letters: einprtu. Private to "peinture": -. Private to "pointures": os.

"peinture" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV  ·  "pointures" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peinture ← epinture · peinnture · peintrue · peintture · peintuer · peinturre · peinutre · peitnure
  • pointures ← opintures · piontures · poinntures · pointrues · pointtures · pointuers · pointuress · pointurres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "peinture" and "pointures" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃.tyʁ\ versus \pwɛ̃.tyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "peinture" or "pointures"?
"peinture" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,049 in our French list, against #39,462 for "pointures". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "peinture" and "pointures" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "peinture" 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 #232,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peinture" 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 #232,555 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