Which to use
“pignon” and “pignons” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,703
- “pignon” frequency rank
- #27,910
- “pignons” frequency rank
- 44613
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pignon | pignons |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Roue dentée faisant partie d’un système à chaîne (inventée en 1880) ou d’un couple d’engrenage dans un système de transmission ou un réducteur. Le pignon est la roue dentée qui a le plus petit nombre de dents. | Pluriel de pignon. |
Same sound, different letters: pignon vs pignons
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. pignon runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against pignons's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: pignon vs pignons
This is the hard kind. pignon and pignons are pronounced identically (\pi.ɲɔ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “pignon” sits inside “pignons”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44613, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pignon is recorded at frequency rank #16,703, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.ɲɔ̃\. pignons is at rank #27,910, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.ɲɔ̃\.
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 44613, this pair ranks #209,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of pignon vs pignons
Shared letters: ginop. Private to "pignon": -. Private to "pignons": s.
"pignon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "pignons" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pignon" and "pignons" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "pignon" or "pignons" show up more?
What to do next
"pignon" and "pignons" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "pignon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pignons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #209,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pignon" and "pignons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pignon vs pinson". 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 #209,131 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.