pou

\pu\

/\pu\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“pou” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #13,869) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#13,869
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Très petit insecte parasite sans ailes qui s’attache à plusieurs espèces d’animaux dont l’humain, agent de phtiriase et pouvant transmettre des maladies.

Corpus desk

Index FR-pou · pou · French

pou · rank #13,869 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #13,869
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH possessions

Nearest frequency peer: possessions (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « pou »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « pou » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

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).

pou vs pu
67% similar
pou vs PS
0% similar
pou vs PQ
0% similar

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

Key facts for pou
PropertyValue
Headwordpou
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pu\
Letters3
Frequency rank#13,869
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « pou »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).pouse place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « possessions » (#13,868), « pouls » (#13,870), « positivement » (#13,867). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « pou » est au #13,869. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for pou is neighbouring look-alikes ("pu", "PS", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \pu\. Frequency #13,869 among 6,826 “P” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

pou doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pu", "PS", "PQ", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is pou, spelled P-O-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Très petit insecte parasite sans ailes qui s’attache à plusieurs espèces d’animaux dont l’humain, agent de phtiriase et pouvant transmettre des maladies.
  2. 2
    Personne laide.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. La nicotiane eſt ennemie des poux & des puces, ſuivant J. Bauhin : on prétend que ſa fumée éloigne toute ſorte d’inſectes, même les punaiſes. On a obſervé que ſa poudre est mortelle aux léſards, ſang-ſues & limaçons.
  2. Il entend leurs cils noirs battant sous les silences Parfumés ; et leurs doigts électriques et doux Font crépiter parmi ses grises indolences Sous leurs ongles royaux la mort des petits poux.

Synonyms

phthiraptèrephtiraptèretoto

This word in other languages

louse(English)piojo(Español)Laus(Deutsch)piolho(Português)

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 "pou"?
"pou" is spelled P-O-U. The IPA pronunciation is \pu\.
What does "pou" mean?
As a noun, "pou" means: Très petit insecte parasite sans ailes qui s’attache à plusieurs espèces d’animaux dont l’humain, agent de phtiriase et pouvant transmettre des maladies.
What words are commonly confused with "pou"?
"pou" is commonly confused with "pu", "PS", "PQ". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "pou"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pou" is \pu\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pou" come from?
"pou" 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 "pou", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

pus#13,881obs#13,851NFL#13,849RIP#13,901

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list