piquésvspiqueurWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#48,104
“piqués” frequency rank
#44,097
“piqueur” frequency rank
92201
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piqués piqueur
Definition Masculin pluriel de piqué. Qui pique, ou qui est susceptible de piquer.

Where the eye mixes piqués and piqueur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. piqués runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against piqueur's 7 (CVCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
piqués
7 ch
piqueur

Look-alike desk: piqués vs piqueur

A purely visual mix-up. piqués (\pi.ke\) and piqueur (\pi.kœʁ\) 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 92201, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piqués is recorded at frequency rank #48,104, classified as anadj, pronounced \pi.ke\. piqueur is at rank #44,097, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pi.kœʁ\.

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 92201, this pair ranks #3,194 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of piqués vs piqueur

Shared letters: ipqu. Private to "piqués": . Private to "piqueur": er.

"piqués" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "piqueur" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • piqueuripqueur · piqeuur · piqqueur · piqueru · piqueurr · piquuer · piuqeur · ppiqueur

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "piqués" and "piqueur" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pi.ke\ versus \pi.kœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "piqués" or "piqueur"?
"piqueur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,097 in our French list, against #48,104 for "piqués". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "piqués" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piqueur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,194 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piqués" and "piqueur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pieuses vs piqués". 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 #3,194 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