pilotisvspivotsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#36,997
“pilotis” frequency rank
#49,278
“pivots” frequency rank
86275
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pilotis pivots
Definition Système de fondation par pieux foncés et recepés portant radier, appelés pilots, en terrain meuble et aquifère. Pluriel de pivot.

Where the eye mixes pilotis and pivots

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. pilotis runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against pivots's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
pilotis
6 ch
pivots

Visual trap between pilotis and pivots

A purely visual mix-up. pilotis (\pi.lɔ.ti\) and pivots (\pi.vo\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86275, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pilotis is recorded at frequency rank #36,997, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.lɔ.ti\. pivots is at rank #49,278, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.vo\.

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 86275, this pair ranks #9,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pilotis vs pivots

Shared letters: iopst. Private to "pilotis": l. Private to "pivots": v.

"pilotis" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "pivots" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pilotisiplotis · pillotis · piloits · pilotiss · pilotsi · pilottis · piltois · pioltis
  • pivotsipvots · piovts · pivost · pivotss · pivotts · pivtos · pivvots · ppivots

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pilotis" and "pivots" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pi.lɔ.ti\ versus \pi.vo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "pilotis" or "pivots" show up more?
"pilotis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,997 in our French list, against #49,278 for "pivots". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "pilotis" and "pivots" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pilotis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pivots" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pilotis" and "pivots" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Piotr vs pivots". 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 #9,970 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