partagevsportageConfusable pair

Which to use

“partage” and “portage” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,450
“partage” frequency rank
#19,374
“portage” frequency rank
20824
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature partage portage
Definition Division de quelque chose en plusieurs portions. Action de porter, de transporter.

Where the eye mixes partage and portage

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. partage and portage follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
partage
7 ch
portage

Why the eye confuses partage with portage

A purely visual mix-up. partage (\paʁ.taʒ\) and portage (\pɔʁ.taʒ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “partage” becomes o in “portage”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20824, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

partage is recorded at frequency rank #1,450, classified as anoun, pronounced \paʁ.taʒ\. portage is at rank #19,374, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.taʒ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 20824, this pair ranks #366,305 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of partage vs portage

Shared letters: aegprt. Private to "partage": -. Private to "portage": o.

"partage" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "portage" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • partage ← aprtage · paratge · parrtage · partaeg · partagge · partgae · parttage · patrage
  • portage ← oprtage · poratge · porrtage · portaeg · portagge · portgae · porttage · potrage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "partage" for "portage" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\paʁ.taʒ\ versus \pɔʁ.taʒ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "partage" or "portage" show up more?
"partage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,450 in our French list, against #19,374 for "portage". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "partage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "portage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #366,305 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "partage" and "portage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "portage vs portante". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #366,305 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list