Which to use
“pesto” and “poste” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #40,918
- “pesto” frequency rank
- #695
- “poste” frequency rank
- 41613
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pesto | poste |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sauce italienne, proche du pistou, composée de basilic, de pignons de pin, d’huile d’olive, d’ail et de fromage râpé. | Établissement de chevaux qui était autrefois placé de distance en distance, pour le service des voyageurs. |
Where the eye mixes pesto and poste
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between pesto and poste
A purely visual mix-up. pesto (\pɛs.to\) and poste (\pɔst\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41613, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pesto is recorded at frequency rank #40,918, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛs.to\. poste is at rank #695, 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 41613, this pair ranks #231,817 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of pesto vs poste
Shared letters: eopst. Private to "pesto": -. Private to "poste": -.
"pesto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "poste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pesto" and "poste" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "pesto" vs "poste" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "pesto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #231,817 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pesto" and "poste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peso vs pesto". 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 #231,817 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.