Which to use
“pillée” is a verb and “piquée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,275
- “pillée” frequency rank
- #26,472
- “piquée” frequency rank
- 75747
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pillée | piquée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé féminin singulier de piller. | Féminin singulier de piqué. |
Where the eye mixes pillée and piquée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pillée (CVCCVV) and piquée (CVCVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses pillée with piquée
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pillée is \pi.je\ while piquée is \pi.ke\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75747, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pillée is recorded at frequency rank #49,275, classified as averb, pronounced \pi.je\. piquée is at rank #26,472, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pi.ke\.
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 75747, this pair ranks #33,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pillée vs piquée
Shared letters: eipé. Private to "pillée": l. Private to "piquée": qu.
"pillée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "piquée" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pillée" and "piquée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "pillée" or "piquée" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "pillée" and "piquée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "pillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "piquée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #33,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pillée" and "piquée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pillée vs Pirée". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #33,129 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.