PillevspinteConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#39,457
“Pille” frequency rank
#28,691
“pinte” frequency rank
68148
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pille pinte
Definition Pilule, forme pharmaceutique en forme de petite boule. Ancienne unité de mesure qui servait à mesurer le vin et autres liquides, et dont la valeur différait selon les lieux. À Paris elle valait 0,93 litre.

Where the eye mixes Pille and pinte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Pille and pinte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Pille
5 ch
pinte

Visual trap between Pille and pinte

A purely visual mix-up. Pille (\ˈpɪlə\) and pinte (\pɛ̃t\) 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 68148, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pille is recorded at frequency rank #39,457, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈpɪlə\. pinte is at rank #28,691, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛ̃t\.

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 68148, this pair ranks #60,348 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pille vs pinte

Shared letters: eip. Private to "Pille": l. Private to "pinte": nt.

"Pille" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pinte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Pille ← iplle · pilel · plile · ppille
  • pinte ← ipnte · pinet · pinnte · pintte · pitne · pnite · ppinte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Pille" and "pinte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈpɪlə\ versus \pɛ̃t\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "Pille" or "pinte" show up more?
"pinte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,691 in our French list, against #39,457 for "Pille". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pinte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,348 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pille" and "pinte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pille vs pillée". 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 #60,348 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