peservsposerTell them apart

Which to use

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

#8,751
“peser” frequency rank
#1,232
“poser” frequency rank
9983
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature peser poser
Definition Examiner la pesanteur d’une chose, la rapporter à un poids déterminé. Placer, mettre sur quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes peser and poser

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. peser and poser follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
peser
5 ch
poser

Why the eye confuses peser with poser

A purely visual mix-up. peser (\pə.ze\) and poser (\po.ze\) 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 - e in “peser” becomes o in “poser”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9983, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

peser is recorded at frequency rank #8,751, classified as averb, pronounced \pə.ze\. poser is at rank #1,232, tagged as averb, pronounced \po.ze\.

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 9983, this pair ranks #414,672 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of peser vs poser

Shared letters: eprs. Private to "peser": -. Private to "poser": o.

"peser" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "poser" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • peserepser · peesr · peserr · pesre · pesser · ppeser · pseer
  • poseropser · poesr · poserr · posre · posser · pposer · psoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "peser" and "poser" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\pə.ze\ versus \po.ze\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "peser" vs "poser" - which ranks higher?
"poser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,232 in our French list, against #8,751 for "peser". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "peser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poser" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,672 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "peser" and "poser" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peep vs peser". 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 #414,672 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