quichevsquinzeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: quiche is a noun, quinze is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“quiche” is a noun and “quinze” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,704
“quiche” frequency rank
#2,955
“quinze” frequency rank
31659
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature quiche quinze
Definition Tarte. Quatorze plus un, adjectif numéral cardinal correspondant au nombre 15.

Where the eye mixes quiche and quinze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. quiche and quinze follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
quiche
6 ch
quinze

Visual trap between quiche and quinze

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: quiche is \kiʃ\ while quinze is \kɛ̃z\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31659, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

quiche is recorded at frequency rank #28,704, classified as anoun, pronounced \kiʃ\. quinze is at rank #2,955, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɛ̃z\.

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 31659, this pair ranks #302,409 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of quiche vs quinze

Shared letters: eiqu. Private to "quiche": ch. Private to "quinze": nz.

"quiche" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "quinze" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • quiche ← qiuche · qquiche · qucihe · quicche · quiceh · quichhe · quihce · uqiche
  • quinze ← qiunze · qquinze · quinez · quinnze · quinzze · quizne · qunize · uqinze

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "quiche" and "quinze" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "quiche" is a noun and "quinze" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "quiche" or "quinze" show up more?
"quinze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,955 in our French list, against #28,704 for "quiche". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "quiche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "quinze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #302,409 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "quiche" and "quinze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "quiche vs quite". 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 #302,409 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