puisévspuisentWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,135
“puisé” frequency rank
#44,119
“puisent” frequency rank
76254
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puisé puisent
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de puiser. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de puiser.

Where the eye mixes puisé and puisent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. puisé runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against puisent's 7 (CVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
puisé
7 ch
puisent

Look-alike desk: puisé vs puisent

A purely visual mix-up. puisé (\pɥi.ze\) and puisent (\pɥiz\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76254, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

puisé is recorded at frequency rank #32,135, classified as averb, pronounced \pɥi.ze\. puisent is at rank #44,119, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɥiz\.

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 76254, this pair ranks #31,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of puisé vs puisent

Shared letters: ipsu. Private to "puisé": é. Private to "puisent": ent.

"puisé" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "puisent" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puisentpiusent · ppuisent · puiesnt · puisennt · puisentt · puisetn · puisnet · pusient

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "puisé" and "puisent" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɥi.ze\ versus \pɥiz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "puisé" or "puisent"?
"puisé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,135 in our French list, against #44,119 for "puisent". 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 "puisé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puisent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #31,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "puisé" and "puisent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plient vs puisent". 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 #31,648 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