Which to use
“piqués” is an adjective and “pues” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,104
- “piqués” frequency rank
- #35,225
- “pues” frequency rank
- 83329
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piqués | pues |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Masculin pluriel de piqué. | Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de puer. |
Where the eye mixes piqués and pues
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. piqués runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against pues's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses piqués with pues
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: piqués is \pi.ke\ while pues is \py\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83329, 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\. pues is at rank #35,225, tagged as averb, pronounced \py\.
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 83329, this pair ranks #15,046 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of piqués vs pues
Shared letters: psu. Private to "piqués": iqé. Private to "pues": e.
"piqués" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "pues" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- pues ← peus · ppues · puess · puse · upes
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "piqués" and "pues" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "piqués" or "pues" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "piqués" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #15,046 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piqués" and "pues" 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 #15,046 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.