pintesvspointsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#44,096
“pintes” frequency rank
#494
“points” frequency rank
44590
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pintes points
Definition Pluriel de pinte. Pluriel de point.

Where the eye mixes pintes and points

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

6 ch
pintes
6 ch
points

Why the eye confuses pintes with points

A purely visual mix-up. pintes (\pɛ̃t\) and points (\pwɛ̃\) 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 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pintes is recorded at frequency rank #44,096, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛ̃t\. points is at rank #494, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃\.

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 44590, this pair ranks #209,316 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pintes vs points

Shared letters: inpst. Private to "pintes": e. Private to "points": o.

"pintes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "points" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pintesipntes · pinets · pinntes · pintess · pintse · pinttes · pitnes · pnites
  • pointsopints · pionts · poinnts · poinst · pointss · pointts · poitns · ponits

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pintes" and "points" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɛ̃t\ versus \pwɛ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pintes" or "points"?
"points" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #494 in our French list, against #44,096 for "pintes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pintes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "points" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #209,316 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pintes" and "points" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pintes 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 #209,316 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