Which to use
“pes” and “pesto” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,825
- “pes” frequency rank
- #40,918
- “pesto” frequency rank
- 74743
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pes | pesto |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de pe. | Sauce italienne, proche du pistou, composée de basilic, de pignons de pin, d’huile d’olive, d’ail et de fromage râpé. |
Where the eye mixes pes and pesto
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pes runs 3 letters (CVC) against pesto's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between pes and pesto
A purely visual mix-up. pes (\pe\) and pesto (\pɛs.to\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “pes” sits inside “pesto”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74743, 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\. pesto is at rank #40,918, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛs.to\.
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 74743, this pair ranks #36,160 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pes vs pesto
Shared letters: eps. Private to "pes": -. Private to "pesto": ot.
"pes" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "pesto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- pesto ← epsto · pesot · pessto · pestto · petso · ppesto · pseto
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pes" and "pesto" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "pes" or "pesto" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "pes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pesto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #36,160 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pes" and "pesto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peso vs pesto". 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 #36,160 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.