Which to use
“picon” and “pilot” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,094
- “picon” frequency rank
- #31,183
- “pilot” frequency rank
- 75277
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | picon | pilot |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Laine de rebut qu’on achète chez les fabricants de lainages fins, et qu’on revend aux fabricants de lainages communs. | Gros pieu de pilotis. |
Where the eye mixes picon and pilot
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. picon and pilot follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses picon with pilot
A purely visual mix-up. picon (\pi.kɔ̃\) and pilot (\pi.lo\) 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 75277, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
picon is recorded at frequency rank #44,094, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.kɔ̃\. pilot is at rank #31,183, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.lo\.
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 75277, this pair ranks #34,582 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of picon vs pilot
Shared letters: iop. Private to "picon": cn. Private to "pilot": lt.
"picon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "pilot" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "picon" and "pilot" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "picon" or "pilot"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "picon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pilot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #34,582 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "picon" and "pilot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "picon 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
Confusion rank #34,582 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.