Which to use
“piller” and “pincer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,103
- “piller” frequency rank
- #30,739
- “pincer” frequency rank
- 49842
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piller | pincer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Emporter violemment les biens d’une ville, d’une maison, etc. | Serrer fortement avec une pince, avec des tenailles ou autres instruments semblables. |
Where the eye mixes piller and pincer
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses piller with pincer
A purely visual mix-up. piller (\pi.je\) and pincer (\pɛ̃.se\) 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 49842, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
piller is recorded at frequency rank #19,103, classified as averb, pronounced \pi.je\. pincer is at rank #30,739, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɛ̃.se\.
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 49842, this pair ranks #167,469 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of piller vs pincer
Shared letters: eipr. Private to "piller": l. Private to "pincer": cn.
"piller" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "pincer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "piller" and "pincer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "piller" or "pincer"?
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 "piller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pincer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #167,469 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piller" and "pincer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Panzer vs pincer". 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 #167,469 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.