Which to use
“place” and “puce” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #178
- “place” frequency rank
- #7,614
- “puce” frequency rank
- 7792
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | place | puce |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu, endroit, espace qu’occupe ou que peut occuper une personne, une chose. | Insecte ectoparasite de très petite taille se déplaçant par saut et qui se nourrit du sang de divers animaux dont l’humain. |
Where the eye mixes place and puce
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses place with puce
A purely visual mix-up. place (\plas\) and puce (\pys\) 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 7792, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
place is recorded at frequency rank #178, classified as anoun, pronounced \plas\. puce is at rank #7,614, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pys\.
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 7792, this pair ranks #422,108 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of place vs puce
Shared letters: cep. Private to "place": al. Private to "puce": u.
"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "puce" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "place" for "puce" ever safe?
Which is more common, "place" or "puce"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "place" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "puce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #422,108 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "place" and "puce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prude vs puce". 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 #422,108 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.