piquetsvspiqûresConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#32,957
“piquets” frequency rank
#21,112
“piqûres” frequency rank
54069
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piquets piqûres
Definition Pluriel de piquet. Pluriel de piqûre.

Where the eye mixes piquets and piqûres

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. piquets (CVCVVCC) and piqûres (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
piquets
7 ch
piqûres

Why the eye confuses piquets with piqûres

A purely visual mix-up. piquets (\pi.kɛ\) and piqûres (\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 54069, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piquets is recorded at frequency rank #32,957, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.kɛ\. 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 54069, this pair ranks #136,515 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of piquets vs piqûres

Shared letters: eipqs. Private to "piquets": tu. Private to "piqûres": .

"piquets" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCC  ·  "piqûres" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • piquetsipquets · piqeuts · piqquets · piquest · piquetss · piquetts · piqutes · piuqets

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "piquets" and "piqûres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pi.kɛ\ versus \pi.kyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "piquets" or "piqûres"?
"piqûres" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,112 in our French list, against #32,957 for "piquets". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "piquets" and "piqûres" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "piquets" 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 #136,515 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piquets" and "piqûres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piquants vs piquets". 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 #136,515 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