pucesvspullsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,648
“puces” frequency rank
#22,050
“pulls” frequency rank
34698
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puces pulls
Definition Marché aux puces. Pluriel de pull.

Where the eye mixes puces and pulls

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
puces
5 ch
pulls

Why the eye confuses puces with pulls

A purely visual mix-up. puces (\pys\) and pulls (\pyl\) 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 34698, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

puces is recorded at frequency rank #12,648, classified as anoun, pronounced \pys\. pulls is at rank #22,050, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pyl\.

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 34698, this pair ranks #282,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of puces vs pulls

Shared letters: psu. Private to "puces": ce. Private to "pulls": l.

"puces" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "pulls" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pucespcues · ppuces · pucces · pucess · pucse · puecs · upces
  • pullspluls · ppulls · pullss · pulsl · uplls

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "puces" and "pulls" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pys\ versus \pyl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "puces" or "pulls"?
"puces" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,648 in our French list, against #22,050 for "pulls". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "puces" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pulls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "puces" and "pulls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Peuls vs pulls". 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 #282,021 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