puisvspuniWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: puis is a adverb, puni is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“puis” is an adverb and “puni” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#172
“puis” frequency rank
#8,762
“puni” frequency rank
8934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puis puni
Definition (adverbe de temps) Permet l’enchaînement chronologique d’évènements. Qui subit une punition, un châtiment.

Where the eye mixes puis and puni

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

4 ch
puis
4 ch
puni

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: puis is \pɥi\ while puni is \py.ni\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

puis is recorded at frequency rank #172, classified as anadv, pronounced \pɥi\. puni is at rank #8,762, tagged as anadj, pronounced \py.ni\.

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 8934, this pair ranks #418,362 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of puis vs puni

Shared letters: ipu. Private to "puis": s. Private to "puni": n.

"puis" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "puni" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puispius · ppuis · puiss · pusi · upis
  • punipnui · ppuni · puin · punni · upni

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "puis" and "puni" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "puis" is an adverb and "puni" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "puis" or "puni"?
"puis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #172 in our French list, against #8,762 for "puni". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list