picturesvsposturesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,715
“pictures” frequency rank
#23,654
“postures” frequency rank
48369
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pictures postures
Definition Pluriel de picture. Pluriel de posture.

Where the eye mixes pictures and postures

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. pictures and postures follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
pictures
8 ch
postures

Why the eye confuses pictures with postures

A purely visual mix-up. pictures (\ˈpɪk.tʃɚz\) and postures (\pɔs.tyʁ\) 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 48369, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pictures is recorded at frequency rank #24,715, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈpɪk.tʃɚz\. postures is at rank #23,654, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔs.tyʁ\.

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 48369, this pair ranks #179,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pictures vs postures

Shared letters: eprstu. Private to "pictures": ci. Private to "postures": o.

"pictures" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "postures" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picturesipctures · pcitures · picctures · pictrues · picttures · pictuers · picturess · picturres
  • posturesopstures · posstures · postrues · posttures · postuers · posturess · posturres · posturse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pictures" for "postures" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈpɪk.tʃɚz\ versus \pɔs.tyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pictures" or "postures"?
"postures" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,654 in our French list, against #24,715 for "pictures". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pictures" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "postures" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #179,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pictures" and "postures" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "posthumes vs postures". 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 #179,472 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