Which to use
“pesée” and “pesto” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,826
- “pesée” frequency rank
- #40,918
- “pesto” frequency rank
- 74744
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pesée | pesto |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de peser. | 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 pesée and pesto
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pesée (CVCVV) and pesto (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between pesée and pesto
A purely visual mix-up. pesée (\pə.ze\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74744, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pesée is recorded at frequency rank #33,826, classified as anoun, pronounced \pə.ze\. 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 74744, this pair ranks #36,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pesée vs pesto
Shared letters: eps. Private to "pesée": é. Private to "pesto": ot.
"pesée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "pesto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- pesto ← epsto · pesot · pessto · pestto · petso · ppesto · pseto
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "pesée" for "pesto" ever safe?
Frequency check: "pesée" vs "pesto" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "pesée" 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 #36,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pesée" 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 #36,154 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.