puisévspuisqueWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: puisé is a verb, puisque is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“puisé” is a verb and “puisque” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,135
“puisé” frequency rank
#775
“puisque” frequency rank
32910
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puisé puisque
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de puiser. Sert à marquer une cause, un motif, une raison.

Where the eye mixes puisé and puisque

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

5 ch
puisé
7 ch
puisque

Look-alike desk: puisé vs puisque

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: puisé is \pɥi.ze\ while puisque is \pɥisk\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs conjunction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32910, 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\. puisque is at rank #775, tagged as aconj, pronounced \pɥisk\.

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 32910, this pair ranks #294,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of puisé vs puisque

Shared letters: ipsu. Private to "puisé": é. Private to "puisque": eq.

"puisé" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "puisque" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puisque ← piusque · ppuisque · puiqsue · puisqeu · puisqque · puissque · puisuqe · pusique

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "puisé" for "puisque" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "puisé" is a verb and "puisque" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "puisé" vs "puisque" - which ranks higher?
"puisque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #775 in our French list, against #32,135 for "puisé". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "puisé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puisque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #294,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "puisé" and "puisque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs puisé". 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 #294,144 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