POW
\piː.əʊ.ˈdʌb.əl.ˌjuː\
The verdict
“POW” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #38,986 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #38,986
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Abréviation de prisoner of war : « prisonnier de guerre ».
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 | POW |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \piː.əʊ.ˈdʌb.əl.ˌjuː\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #38,986 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “POW” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for POW is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \piː.əʊ.ˈdʌb.əl.ˌjuː\. Corpus data places it at rank #38,986 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for POW in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pu", "PS", "PQ", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is POW, spelled P-O-W.
Definition
- 1Abréviation de prisoner of war : « prisonnier de guerre ».
- 2Abréviation de prince of Wales : « prince de Galles ».
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
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Using “POW”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \piː.əʊ.ˈdʌb.əl.ˌjuː\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “pu” - see the side-by-side comparison. POW vs pu
- 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.