pendrevspenteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,110
“pendre” frequency rank
#6,328
“pente” frequency rank
20438
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pendre pente
Definition Attacher une chose, une personne ou un animal en haut par une de ses parties, de manière qu’elle ne touche pas en bas. Inclinaison d’un terrain ; toute déclivité en montée ou en descente.

Where the eye mixes pendre and pente

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
pendre
5 ch
pente

Look-alike desk: pendre vs pente

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pendre is \pɑ̃dʁ\ while pente is \pɑ̃t\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20438, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pendre is recorded at frequency rank #14,110, classified as averb, pronounced \pɑ̃dʁ\. pente is at rank #6,328, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɑ̃t\.

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 20438, this pair ranks #368,268 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pendre vs pente

Shared letters: enp. Private to "pendre": dr. Private to "pente": t.

"pendre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "pente" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pendreepndre · pednre · penddre · pender · pendrre · penndre · penrde · pnedre
  • penteepnte · penet · pennte · pentte · petne · pnete · ppente

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pendre" and "pente" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pendre" is a verb and "pente" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pendre" vs "pente" - which ranks higher?
"pente" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,328 in our French list, against #14,110 for "pendre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pendre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pente" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #368,268 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pendre" and "pente" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pendre vs perdrez". 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 #368,268 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