Which to use
“piquet” and “piqûre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #24,718
- “piquet” frequency rank
- #18,280
- “piqûre” frequency rank
- 42998
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piquet | piqûre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Petit pieu que l’on fiche en terre pour tendre et arrêter les cordes des tentes, des pavillons. | Petite blessure que fait une chose ou un animal qui pique. |
Where the eye mixes piquet and piqûre
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. piquet (CVCVVC) and piqûre (CVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses piquet with piqûre
A purely visual mix-up. piquet (\pi.kɛ\) and piqûre (\pi.kyʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42998, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
piquet is recorded at frequency rank #24,718, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.kɛ\. piqûre is at rank #18,280, 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 42998, this pair ranks #221,374 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of piquet vs piqûre
Shared letters: eipq. Private to "piquet": tu. Private to "piqûre": rû.
"piquet" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "piqûre" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- piquet ← ipquet · piqeut · piqquet · piquett · piqute · piuqet · ppiquet · pqiuet
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "piquet" and "piqûre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "piquet" vs "piqûre" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "piquet" and "piqûre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "piquet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "piqûre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #221,374 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piquet" and "piqûre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piqués vs piquet". 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 #221,374 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.