pendvsponConfusable pair

Quick tell: pend is a verb, pon is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pend” is a verb and “pon” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,710
“pend” frequency rank
#43,075
“pon” frequency rank
67785
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pend pon
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de pendre. Pont.

Letter map: pend vs pon

Shared letters muted; letters that set pend and pon apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
pend
3 ch
pon

Part-of-speech tell for pend / pon

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pend is averb and ponanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pend is recorded at frequency rank #24,710, classified as averb, pronounced \pɑ̃\. pon is at rank #43,075, tagged as anoun.

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 67785, this pair ranks #61,937 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pend vs pon

Shared letters: np. Private to "pend": de. Private to "pon": o.

"pend" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pon" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pendepnd · pedn · pendd · pennd · pned · ppend

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pend" and "pon" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pend" is a verb and "pon" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pend" or "pon"?
"pend" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,710 in our French list, against #43,075 for "pon". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "pend" vs "pon" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pend" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,937 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pend" and "pon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs pon". 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 #61,937 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