poutre
\putʁ\
The verdict
“poutre” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #15,725 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #15,725
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Pièce de bois de forme allongée, servant dans les constructions à supporter une charpente ou un parquet.
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 | poutre |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \putʁ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #15,725 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “poutre” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for poutre is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \putʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #15,725 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for poutre, with forms such as "oputre", "poture", and "pourte". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pure", "pute", "prêtre", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is poutre, spelled P-O-U-T-R-E.
Definition
- 1Pièce de bois de forme allongée, servant dans les constructions à supporter une charpente ou un parquet.
- 2Tout élément de construction de forme allongée en béton ou métallique.
- 3Synonyme de trabe.
- 4Un des agrès en gymnastique féminine, où la gymnaste doit évoluer sur une poutre horizontale de dix centimètres de large à un mètre du sol.
- 5Modèle de pièce permettant de simplifier les calculs de résistance des matériaux, attribuée dans sa forme finale à Leonhard Euler et Jacques Bernoulli : pièce définie par une ligne, appelée fibre neutre, de courbure faible par rapport à la longueur de la pièce, et par une section perpendiculaire à cette fibre et variant de manière lente par rapport à la longueur de la poutre, appelée section droite.
- 6Type de planeur destiné à l'initiation et à l'entraînement des débutants en vol à voile.
- 7Quantité particulièrement grande de drogue répartie en une ligne destinée à être inhalée en une seule fois.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: oputre,poture,pourte,pouter,poutrre,pouttre,ppoutre,puotre
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of poutre - 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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "poutre"?
What does "poutre" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "poutre"?
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Using “poutre”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-O-U-T-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \putʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “pure” - see the side-by-side comparison. poutre vs pure
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.