Which to use
“public” and “publique” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #382
- “public” frequency rank
- #697
- “publique” frequency rank
- 1079
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | public | publique |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui appartient au peuple dans son entier. | Féminin singulier de public. |
Same sound, different letters: public vs publique
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. public runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against publique's 8 (CVCCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - public and publique
This is the hard kind. public and publique are pronounced identically (\py.blik\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1079, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
public is recorded at frequency rank #382, classified as anadj, pronounced \py.blik\. publique is at rank #697, tagged as anadj, pronounced \py.blik\.
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 1079, this pair ranks #438,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of public vs publique
Shared letters: bilpu. Private to "public": c. Private to "publique": eq.
"public" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "publique" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "public" and "publique" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "public" vs "publique" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "public" / "publique". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "public" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "publique" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #438,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "public" and "publique" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "publique vs punique". 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 #438,658 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.