positive

\pɔ.zi.tiv\

/\pɔ.zi.tiv\/ adj

The verdict

“positive” has 11 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #4,011. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#4,011
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
11
tracked misspellings
6
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Féminin singulier de positif.

Corpus desk

Index FR-positive · positive · French

positive · rank #4,011 · 11 variants · 6 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,011
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 6 pairs
  • VAR-MID 11 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH personnalités

Nearest frequency peer: personnalités (-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 « positive »

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

corpus weight

What this shows « positive » 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).

positive vs punitive
75% similar
positive vs positives
89% similar
positive vs positivité
70% similar

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

Key facts for positive
PropertyValue
Headwordpositive
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\pɔ.zi.tiv\
Letters8
Frequency rank#4,011
Misspellings tracked11
Confusable pairs6
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « positive »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.positivese place ici:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « personnalités » (#4,010), « producteur » (#4,012), « perdue » (#4,009). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « positive » est au #4,011. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 11 spelling variants around positive (IPA \pɔ.zi.tiv\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #4,011 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Féminin singulier de positif.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for positive, with forms such as "opsitive", "poistive", and "posiitve". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "punitive", "positives", "positivité", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

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 positive, spelled P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Féminin singulier de positif.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. La vie laborieuse, active, toute estimable, toute positive, d’un conseiller d’État, d’un manufacturier de tissus de coton ou d’un banquier fort alerte pour les emprunts, est récompensée par des millions, et non par des sensations tendres.
  2. Il s’agit maintenant, après les renvois tout de même utiles de Hartmann à la sphère de la possibilité — surtout après sa positive bataille contre la tyrannie du possible aristotélicien conçu comme un étant diminué et réduit de moitié par rapport au réel —, de voir s’il ne subsiste pas un nouveau type de possibilité artistique du réel, qui au lieu de rompr…

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • opsitive
  • poistive
  • posiitve
  • positiev
  • positivve
  • posittive
  • positvie
  • possitive
  • postiive
  • ppositive
  • psoitive

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of positive - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

opsitive2poistive2posiitve2positiev2positivve1posittive1positvie2possitive1
Edit distance from "positive"

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 "positive"?
"positive" is spelled P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pɔ.zi.tiv\.
What does "positive" mean?
As an adjective, "positive" means: Féminin singulier de positif.
What words are commonly confused with "positive"?
"positive" is commonly confused with "punitive", "positives", "positivité". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "positive"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "positive" is \pɔ.zi.tiv\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "positive" come from?
"positive" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "positive", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (11 here; floor ≥5).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list