Which to use
“piqués” is an adjective and “piqûres” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,104
- “piqués” frequency rank
- #21,112
- “piqûres” frequency rank
- 69216
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piqués | piqûres |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Masculin pluriel de piqué. | Pluriel de piqûre. |
Where the eye mixes piqués and piqûres
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. piqués runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against piqûres's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses piqués with piqûres
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: piqués is \pi.ke\ while piqûres is \pi.kyʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69216, 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\. piqûres is at rank #21,112, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pi.kyʁ\.
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 69216, this pair ranks #56,019 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of piqués vs piqûres
Shared letters: ipqs. Private to "piqués": ué. Private to "piqûres": erû.
"piqués" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "piqûres" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "piqués" and "piqûres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "piqués" or "piqûres" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "piqués" and "piqûres" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "piqués" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "piqûres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #56,019 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piqués" and "piqûres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pieuses vs piqués". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #56,019 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.