Which to use
“poing” and “pointe” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,541
- “poing” frequency rank
- #1,883
- “pointe” frequency rank
- 8424
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poing | pointe |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Main fermée. | Extrémité piquante et aigüe de quelque chose que ce soit. |
Where the eye mixes poing and pointe
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. poing runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against pointe's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between poing and pointe
A purely visual mix-up. poing (\pwɛ̃\) and pointe (\pwɛ̃t\) 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 8424, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poing is recorded at frequency rank #6,541, classified as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃\. pointe is at rank #1,883, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃t\.
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 8424, this pair ranks #420,066 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of poing vs pointe
Shared letters: inop. Private to "poing": g. Private to "pointe": et.
"poing" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "pointe" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "poing" and "pointe" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "poing" or "pointe" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "poing" and "pointe" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "poing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pointe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #420,066 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poing" and "pointe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peins vs poing". 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 #420,066 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.