pose
/poʊz/
"pose" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pose” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,084) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #6,084
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - Common cold, head cold; catarrh.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pose · pose · English
pose · rank #6,084 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,084
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH Portugal
Nearest frequency peer: Portugal (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “pose”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- polls
polls
93,920 corpus weight
- poorly
poorly
93,919 corpus weight
- Portugal
Portugal
93,918 corpus weight
- pose
pose
93,917 corpus weight
- pour
pour
93,916 corpus weight
- provider
provider
93,914 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “pose” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pose |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /poʊz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #6,084 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pose” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for pose is neighbouring look-alikes ("PS", "pot", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /poʊz/. Frequency #6,084 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Common cold, head cold; catarrh.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for pose, with forms such as "opse", "poes", and "ppose". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PS", "pot", "PSA", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pose, from Old English ġeposu pl (“cold in the head; catarrh”, literally “(the) sneezes; (the) snorts”), from Old English pos, ġepos (“sneeze, snort”), from Proto-West Germanic *pos, from Proto-Germanic *pusą (“sneeze, snort”), from Prot… The correct English form is pose, spelled P-O-S-E.
Definition
- 1Common cold, head cold; catarrh.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pose appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Now […] have we many chimnies, and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses.
Megg yesterday was troubled with a pose, Which, this night hardned, sodders up her nose.
Etymology
From Middle English pose, from Old English ġeposu pl (“cold in the head; catarrh”, literally “(the) sneezes; (the) snorts”), from Old English pos, ġepos (“sneeze, snort”), from Proto-West Germanic *pos, from Proto-Germanic *pusą (“sneeze, snort”), from Proto-Germanic *pusōną, *pusjaną (“to snort, blow”), from *pus- (“to blow, breathe hard”), from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to blow, swell”). Compare Low German pusten (“to blow, puff”), German dialectal pfausen (“to sneeze, snort”), Norwegian dialectal pysa (“to blow”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- opse
- poes
- ppose
- psoe
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pose - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pose", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "pose". Here's where to go from here.
- "pose" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "PS". View pair
- 4 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #6,084 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "P" letter cohort. P–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.