pesvspesoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#33,825
“pes” frequency rank
#48,714
“peso” frequency rank
82539
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pes peso
Definition Pluriel de pe. Variante de péso.

Where the eye mixes pes and peso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pes runs 3 letters (CVC) against peso's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
pes
4 ch
peso

Why the eye confuses pes with peso

A purely visual mix-up. pes (\pe\) and peso (\pe.zo\) 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 extra letter(s) - “pes” sits inside “peso”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82539, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pes is recorded at frequency rank #33,825, classified as anoun, pronounced \pe\. peso is at rank #48,714, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pe.zo\.

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 82539, this pair ranks #16,541 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pes vs peso

Shared letters: eps. Private to "pes": -. Private to "peso": o.

"pes" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "peso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peso ← epso · peos · ppeso · pseo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pes" for "peso" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pe\ versus \pe.zo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "pes" or "peso" show up more?
"pes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,825 in our French list, against #48,714 for "peso". 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 "pes" and "peso" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "peso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,541 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pes" and "peso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peep vs peso". 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 #16,541 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