picovspièceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,924
“pico” frequency rank
#852
“pièce” frequency rank
41776
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pico pièce
Definition Bec d’oiseau. Chacun des éléments d’un ensemble défini. → voir pièce détachée, de toutes pièces, juger sur pièces, pièce à pièce et pièce par pièce

Where the eye mixes pico and pièce

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pico
5 ch
pièce

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pico (\ˈpi.ko\) and pièce (\pjɛs\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41776, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pico is recorded at frequency rank #40,924, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈpi.ko\. pièce is at rank #852, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pjɛs\.

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 41776, this pair ranks #230,581 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pico vs pièce

Shared letters: cip. Private to "pico": o. Private to "pièce": .

"pico" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "pièce" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picoipco · pcio · picco · pioc · ppico

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pico" and "pièce" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈpi.ko\ versus \pjɛs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pico" or "pièce"?
"pièce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #852 in our French list, against #40,924 for "pico". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "pico" and "pièce". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pico" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pièce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,581 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pico" and "pièce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pico vs pio". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list