puesvspuiséWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#35,225
“pues” frequency rank
#32,135
“puisé” frequency rank
67360
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pues puisé
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de puer. Participe passé masculin singulier de puiser.

Where the eye mixes pues and puisé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pues runs 4 letters (CVVC) against puisé's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
pues
5 ch
puisé

Look-alike desk: pues vs puisé

A purely visual mix-up. pues (\py\) 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67360, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pues is recorded at frequency rank #35,225, classified as averb, pronounced \py\. 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 67360, this pair ranks #63,756 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pues vs puisé

Shared letters: psu. Private to "pues": e. Private to "puisé": ié.

"pues" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "puisé" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pues ← peus · ppues · puess · puse · upes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pues" and "puisé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\py\ versus \pɥi.ze\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pues" or "puisé"?
"puisé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,135 in our French list, against #35,225 for "pues". 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 "pues" and "puisé" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pues" 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 #63,756 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pues" and "puisé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prep vs pues". 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 #63,756 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