picturevspiqûreWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,908
“picture” frequency rank
#18,280
“piqûre” frequency rank
46188
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature picture piqûre
Definition Image. Petite blessure que fait une chose ou un animal qui pique.

Where the eye mixes picture and piqûre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. picture runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against piqûre's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
picture
6 ch
piqûre

Look-alike desk: picture vs piqûre

A purely visual mix-up. picture (\ˈpɪk.tʃɚ\) and piqûre (\pi.kyʁ\) 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 46188, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

picture is recorded at frequency rank #27,908, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈpɪk.tʃɚ\. piqûre is at rank #18,280, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.kyʁ\.

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 46188, this pair ranks #196,914 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of picture vs piqûre

Shared letters: eipr. Private to "picture": ctu. Private to "piqûre": qû.

"picture" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "piqûre" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picture ← ipcture · pciture · piccture · pictrue · pictture · pictuer · picturre · picutre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "picture" for "piqûre" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈpɪk.tʃɚ\ versus \pi.kyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "picture" vs "piqûre" - which ranks higher?
"piqûre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,280 in our French list, against #27,908 for "picture". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "picture" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piqûre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,914 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "picture" and "piqûre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pictural vs picture". 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 #196,914 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list