pliéevspriseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pliée is a verb, prise is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pliée” is a verb and “prise” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,742
“pliée” frequency rank
#758
“prise” frequency rank
31500
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pliée prise
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de plier. Faculté de prendre, de saisir.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set pliée and prise apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
pliée
5 ch
prise

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pliée is \pli.je\ while prise is \pʁiz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31500, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pliée is recorded at frequency rank #30,742, classified as averb, pronounced \pli.je\. prise is at rank #758, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁiz\.

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 31500, this pair ranks #303,420 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pliée vs prise

Shared letters: eip. Private to "pliée": . Private to "prise": rs.

"pliée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV  ·  "prise" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prisepirse · pprise · pries · prisse · prrise · prsie · rpise

Frequency comparison

pliée#30,742
prise#758

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pliée" and "prise" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pliée" is a verb and "prise" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pliée" or "prise"?
"prise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #758 in our French list, against #30,742 for "pliée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering pliée vs prise

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “pliée”; for a noun, it's “prise”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “pliée” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list