pertevsportsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#1,418
“perte” frequency rank
#6,642
“ports” frequency rank
8060
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature perte ports
Definition Privation de quelque chose de précieux, d’agréable, de commode, qu’on avait. Pluriel de port.

Where the eye mixes perte and ports

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

5 ch
perte
5 ch
ports

Visual trap between perte and ports

A purely visual mix-up. perte (\pɛʁt\) and ports (\pɔʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

perte is recorded at frequency rank #1,418, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁt\. ports is at rank #6,642, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ\.

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 8060, this pair ranks #421,258 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of perte vs ports

Shared letters: prt. Private to "perte": e. Private to "ports": os.

"perte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "ports" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • perteeprte · peret · perrte · pertte · petre · pperte · prete
  • portsoprts · porrts · porst · portss · portts · potrs · pports · prots

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "perte" for "ports" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɛʁt\ versus \pɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "perte" or "ports" show up more?
"perte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,418 in our French list, against #6,642 for "ports". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "perte" and "ports" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "perte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ports" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #421,258 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "perte" and "ports" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perfs vs ports". 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 #421,258 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