Which to use
“picot” and “piton” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #34,671
- “picot” frequency rank
- #32,118
- “piton” frequency rank
- 66789
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | picot | piton |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Petite pointe qui demeure sur le bois qu’on n’a pas coupé net. | Sorte de clou ou de vis dont la tête est en forme d’anneau. |
Where the eye mixes picot and piton
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. picot and piton 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 picot with piton
A purely visual mix-up. picot (\pi.ko\) and piton (\pi.tɔ̃\) 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 66789, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
picot is recorded at frequency rank #34,671, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.ko\. piton is at rank #32,118, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.tɔ̃\.
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 66789, this pair ranks #66,229 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of picot vs piton
Shared letters: iopt. Private to "picot": c. Private to "piton": n.
"picot" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "piton" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "picot" and "piton" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "picot" or "piton"?
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 "picot" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "piton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #66,229 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "picot" and "piton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "picot vs pivots". 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 #66,229 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.