Which to use
“puissent” and “puisses” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,033
- “puissent” frequency rank
- #14,337
- “puisses” frequency rank
- 17370
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | puissent | puisses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du pluriel du présent du subjonctif de pouvoir. | Deuxième personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de pouvoir. |
Same sound, different letters: puissent vs puisses
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Homophone desk: puissent vs puisses
This is the hard kind. puissent and puisses are pronounced identically (\pɥis\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17370, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
puissent is recorded at frequency rank #3,033, classified as averb, pronounced \pɥis\. puisses is at rank #14,337, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɥis\.
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 17370, this pair ranks #383,516 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of puissent vs puisses
Shared letters: eipsu. Private to "puissent": nt. Private to "puisses": -.
"puissent" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC · "puisses" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "puissent" and "puisses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "puissent" or "puisses" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "puissent" / "puisses". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "puissent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "puisses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #383,516 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "puissent" and "puisses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prisées vs puisses". 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 #383,516 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.