pâtésvspostesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#32,137
“pâtés” frequency rank
#2,192
“postes” frequency rank
34329
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pâtés postes
Definition Pluriel de pâté. Pluriel de poste.

Where the eye mixes pâtés and postes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pâtés
6 ch
postes

Visual trap between pâtés and postes

A purely visual mix-up. pâtés (\pɑ.te\) and postes (\pɔst\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34329, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pâtés is recorded at frequency rank #32,137, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɑ.te\. postes is at rank #2,192, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔst\.

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 34329, this pair ranks #284,597 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pâtés vs postes

Shared letters: pst. Private to "pâtés": âé. Private to "postes": eo.

"pâtés" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "postes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • postesopstes · posets · posstes · postess · postse · posttes · potses · ppostes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pâtés" and "postes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pɑ.te\ versus \pɔst\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pâtés" vs "postes" - which ranks higher?
"postes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,192 in our French list, against #32,137 for "pâtés". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pâtés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "postes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #284,597 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pâtés" and "postes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pâtés vs pètes". 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 #284,597 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