Which to use
“patience” and “potence” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,174
- “patience” frequency rank
- #32,532
- “potence” frequency rank
- 36706
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | patience | potence |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Vertu qui fait supporter les adversités, les douleurs, les injures, les incommodités, etc. | Assemblage de trois pièces de bois ou de fer, dont une est dressée verticalement, une autre est posée horizontalement sur la première, et la troisième soutient l’extrémité de celle-ci. |
Where the eye mixes patience and potence
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. patience runs 8 letters (CVCVVCCV) against potence's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between patience and potence
A purely visual mix-up. patience (\pa.sjɑ̃s\) and potence (\pɔ.tɑ̃s\) 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 36706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
patience is recorded at frequency rank #4,174, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.sjɑ̃s\. potence is at rank #32,532, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.tɑ̃s\.
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 36706, this pair ranks #267,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of patience vs potence
Shared letters: cenpt. Private to "patience": ai. Private to "potence": o.
"patience" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV · "potence" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "patience" for "potence" ever safe?
Which is more common, "patience" or "potence"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "patience" and "potence" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "patience" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "potence" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #267,685 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "patience" and "potence" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "patente vs potence". 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 #267,685 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.