pucevspuitWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,614
“puce” frequency rank
#41,476
“puit” frequency rank
49090
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puce puit
Definition Insecte ectoparasite de très petite taille se déplaçant par saut et qui se nourrit du sang de divers animaux dont l’humain. Variante orthographique de puits.

Where the eye mixes puce and puit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
puce
4 ch
puit

Visual trap between puce and puit

A purely visual mix-up. puce (\pys\) and puit (\pɥi\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

puce is recorded at frequency rank #7,614, classified as anoun, pronounced \pys\. puit is at rank #41,476, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɥi\.

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 49090, this pair ranks #173,561 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of puce vs puit

Shared letters: pu. Private to "puce": ce. Private to "puit": it.

"puce" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "puit" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pucepcue · ppuce · pucce · puec · upce
  • puitpiut · ppuit · puitt · puti · upit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "puce" for "puit" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pys\ versus \pɥi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "puce" or "puit"?
"puce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,614 in our French list, against #41,476 for "puit". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "puce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,561 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "puce" and "puit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs puit". 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 #173,561 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