piègevspriéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: piège is a noun, priée is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“piège” is a noun and “priée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,167
“piège” frequency rank
#49,295
“priée” frequency rank
54462
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piège priée
Definition Instrument, machine dont on se sert pour prendre des animaux, comme les loups, les renards, les insectes nuisibles, etc. Participe passé féminin singulier de prier.

Where the eye mixes piège and priée

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

5 ch
piège
5 ch
priée

Look-alike desk: piège vs priée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: piège is \pjɛʒ\ while priée is \pʁi.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54462, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piège is recorded at frequency rank #5,167, classified as anoun, pronounced \pjɛʒ\. priée is at rank #49,295, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁi.je\.

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 54462, this pair ranks #133,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of piège vs priée

Shared letters: eip. Private to "piège": . Private to "priée": .

"piège" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "priée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "piège" and "priée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "piège" is a noun and "priée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "piège" or "priée"?
"piège" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,167 in our French list, against #49,295 for "priée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "piège" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "priée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #133,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piège" and "priée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs priée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #133,902 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