pintevsponceTell them apart

Which to use

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

#28,691
“pinte” frequency rank
#30,309
“ponce” frequency rank
59000
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pinte ponce
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. Pierre extrêmement sèche, poreuse et légère, qui est un produit des volcans.

Where the eye mixes pinte and ponce

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

5 ch
pinte
5 ch
ponce

Look-alike desk: pinte vs ponce

A purely visual mix-up. pinte (\pɛ̃t\) and ponce (\pɔ̃s\) 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 59000, 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\. ponce is at rank #30,309, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ̃s\.

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 59000, this pair ranks #105,657 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pinte vs ponce

Shared letters: enp. Private to "pinte": it. Private to "ponce": co.

"pinte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "ponce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pinte ← ipnte · pinet · pinnte · pintte · pitne · pnite · ppinte
  • ponce ← opnce · pnoce · pocne · poncce · ponec · ponnce · pponce

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pinte" for "ponce" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃t\ versus \pɔ̃s\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pinte" or "ponce"?
"pinte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,691 in our French list, against #30,309 for "ponce". 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 "pinte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ponce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,657 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pinte" and "ponce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ponce 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 #105,657 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