pliéevspuiséTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,742
“pliée” frequency rank
#32,135
“puisé” frequency rank
62877
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pliée puisé
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de plier. Participe passé masculin singulier de puiser.

Where the eye mixes pliée and puisé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pliée (CCVVV) and puisé (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
pliée
5 ch
puisé

Look-alike desk: pliée vs puisé

A purely visual mix-up. pliée (\pli.je\) and puisé (\pɥi.ze\) 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 62877, 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\. puisé is at rank #32,135, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɥi.ze\.

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 62877, this pair ranks #84,790 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pliée vs puisé

Shared letters: ipé. Private to "pliée": el. Private to "puisé": su.

"pliée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV  ·  "puisé" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pliée" and "puisé" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pli.je\ versus \pɥi.ze\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pliée" or "puisé"?
"pliée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,742 in our French list, against #32,135 for "puisé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pliée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puisé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #84,790 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pliée" and "puisé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs puisé". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #84,790 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