pitonvspoisonWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,118
“piton” frequency rank
#9,216
“poison” frequency rank
41334
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piton poison
Definition Sorte de clou ou de vis dont la tête est en forme d’anneau. Substance qui, introduite dans l’organisme, altère ou même détruit les fonctions vitales.

Where the eye mixes piton and poison

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
piton
6 ch
poison

Visual trap between piton and poison

A purely visual mix-up. piton (\pi.tɔ̃\) and poison (\pwa.zɔ̃\) 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 41334, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piton is recorded at frequency rank #32,118, classified as anoun, pronounced \pi.tɔ̃\. poison is at rank #9,216, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwa.zɔ̃\.

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 41334, this pair ranks #233,868 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of piton vs poison

Shared letters: inop. Private to "piton": t. Private to "poison": s.

"piton" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "poison" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pitonipton · piotn · pitno · pitonn · pitton · ppiton · ption
  • poisonopison · pioson · poiosn · poisno · poisonn · posion · ppoison

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "piton" and "poison" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pi.tɔ̃\ versus \pwa.zɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "piton" or "poison"?
"poison" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,216 in our French list, against #32,118 for "piton". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "piton" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poison" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #233,868 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piton" and "poison" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs piton". 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 #233,868 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