piquéevsplaquéeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,472
“piquée” frequency rank
#43,069
“plaquée” frequency rank
69541
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piquée plaquée
Definition Féminin singulier de piqué. Féminin singulier de plaqué.

Where the eye mixes piquée and plaquée

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

6 ch
piquée
7 ch
plaquée

Visual trap between piquée and plaquée

A purely visual mix-up. piquée (\pi.ke\) and plaquée (\pla.ke\) 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 69541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piquée is recorded at frequency rank #26,472, classified as anadj, pronounced \pi.ke\. plaquée is at rank #43,069, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pla.ke\.

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 69541, this pair ranks #54,708 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of piquée vs plaquée

Shared letters: epqué. Private to "piquée": i. Private to "plaquée": al.

"piquée" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV  ·  "plaquée" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "piquée" and "plaquée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pi.ke\ versus \pla.ke\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "piquée" vs "plaquée" - which ranks higher?
"piquée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,472 in our French list, against #43,069 for "plaquée". 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 "piquée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plaquée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,708 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piquée" and "plaquée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "planqués vs plaquée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #54,708 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