Which to use
“piqués” and “poilues” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #48,104
- “piqués” frequency rank
- #49,282
- “poilues” frequency rank
- 97386
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piqués | poilues |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Masculin pluriel de piqué. | Féminin pluriel de poilu. |
Where the eye mixes piqués and poilues
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. piqués runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against poilues's 7 (CVVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses piqués with poilues
A purely visual mix-up. piqués (\pi.ke\) and poilues (\pwa.ly\) 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 97386, 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\. poilues is at rank #49,282, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pwa.ly\.
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 97386, this pair ranks #354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of piqués vs poilues
Shared letters: ipsu. Private to "piqués": qé. Private to "poilues": elo.
"piqués" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "poilues" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- poilues ← opilues · piolues · poileus · poillues · poiluess · poiluse · poiules · poliues
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "piqués" and "poilues" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "piqués" vs "poilues" - which ranks higher?
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 "poilues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piqués" and "poilues" 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 #354 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.