pintevspointerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#28,691
“pinte” frequency rank
#11,102
“pointer” frequency rank
39793
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pinte pointer
Definition 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. Race de grand chien d’arrêt britannique, originaire d’Angleterre, au stop bien marqué, à queue droite et effilée, à poil court, à robe unicolore ou bicolore.

Where the eye mixes pinte and pointer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pinte
7 ch
pointer

Why the eye confuses pinte with pointer

A purely visual mix-up. pinte (\pɛ̃t\) and pointer (\pwɛ̃.tɛʁ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39793, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pinte is recorded at frequency rank #28,691, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛ̃t\. pointer is at rank #11,102, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃.tɛʁ\.

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 39793, this pair ranks #245,338 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pinte vs pointer

Shared letters: einpt. Private to "pinte": -. Private to "pointer": or.

"pinte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pointer" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pinteipnte · pinet · pinnte · pintte · pitne · pnite · ppinte
  • pointeropinter · pionter · poinetr · poinnter · pointerr · pointre · pointter · poitner

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pinte" and "pointer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃t\ versus \pwɛ̃.tɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pinte" vs "pointer" - which ranks higher?
"pointer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,102 in our French list, against #28,691 for "pinte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pinte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pointer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #245,338 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pinte" and "pointer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pinte vs pontet". 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 #245,338 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