puisvspunisWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#172
“puis” frequency rank
#14,338
“punis” frequency rank
14510
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puis punis
Definition (adverbe de temps) Permet l’enchaînement chronologique d’évènements. Masculin pluriel de puni.

Where the eye mixes puis and punis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
puis
5 ch
punis

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: puis is \pɥi\ while punis is \py.ni\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

puis is recorded at frequency rank #172, classified as anadv, pronounced \pɥi\. punis is at rank #14,338, 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 14510, this pair ranks #396,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of puis vs punis

Shared letters: ipsu. Private to "puis": -. Private to "punis": n.

"puis" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "punis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puispius · ppuis · puiss · pusi · upis
  • punispnuis · ppunis · puins · puniss · punnis · punsi · upnis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "puis" and "punis" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "puis" is an adverb and "punis" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "puis" or "punis"?
"puis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #172 in our French list, against #14,338 for "punis". 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