portaient

\pɔʁ.tɛ\

/\pɔʁ.tɛ\/ verb

The verdict

“portaient” has 13 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #11,459. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#11,459
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
13
tracked misspellings
12
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de porter.

Corpus desk

Index FR-portaient · portaient · French

portaient · rank #11,459 · 13 variants · 12 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #11,459
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 12 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 13 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH Porsche

Nearest frequency peer: Porsche (-1 rank slots)

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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « portaient »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « portaient » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

portaient vs portant
78% similar
portaient vs portent
78% similar
portaient vs portait
78% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for portaient
PropertyValue
Headwordportaient
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\pɔʁ.tɛ\
Letters9
Frequency rank#11,459
Misspellings tracked13
Confusable pairs12
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « portaient »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).portaientse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « Porsche » (#11,458), « posés » (#11,460), « pertinent » (#11,457). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « portaient » est au #11,459. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 13 spelling variants around portaient (IPA \pɔʁ.tɛ\), averb. Corpus frequency is #11,459 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de porter.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for portaient, with forms such as "oprtaient", "poratient", and "porrtaient". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 12 confusable-pair relationships, "portant", "portent", "portait", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is portaient, spelled P-O-R-T-A-I-E-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de porter.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how portaient appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Réfugiés dans les bois, ils survivaient parfois quelques saisons de la nourriture que leur portaient les femmes avant d’être « manchotés » (d’avoir le bras coupé) par les commandeurs.
  2. Quoiqu’elle ne manquât ni de sens ni de perspicacité, les idées religieuses et son ignorance ayant enveloppé ses qualités dans un cercle d’airain, elles ne s’exercèrent que dans les choses les plus vulgaires de la vie ; puis, disséminées sur peu de points, elles se portaient tout entières sur l’affaire en train.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • oprtaient
  • poratient
  • porrtaient
  • portaeint
  • portaiennt
  • portaientt
  • portaietn
  • portainet
  • portiaent
  • porttaient
  • potraient
  • pportaient
  • protaient

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of portaient - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

oprtaient2poratient2porrtaient1portaeint2portaiennt1portaientt1portaietn2portainet2
Edit distance from "portaient"

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "portaient"?
"portaient" is spelled P-O-R-T-A-I-E-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \pɔʁ.tɛ\.
What does "portaient" mean?
As a verb, "portaient" means: Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de porter.
What words are commonly confused with "portaient"?
"portaient" is commonly confused with "portant", "portent", "portait". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "portaient"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "portaient" is \pɔʁ.tɛ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "portaient" come from?
"portaient" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "portaient", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (13 here; floor ≥5).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list