Which to use
“piste” and “posts” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,963
- “piste” frequency rank
- #15,215
- “posts” frequency rank
- 17178
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piste | posts |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Trace qu’a laissée un animal ou un homme sur le sol où il a marché. | Pluriel de post. |
Where the eye mixes piste and posts
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses piste with posts
A purely visual mix-up. piste (\pist\) and posts (\pɔst\) 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 17178, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
piste is recorded at frequency rank #1,963, classified as anoun, pronounced \pist\. posts is at rank #15,215, 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 17178, this pair ranks #384,413 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of piste vs posts
Shared letters: pst. Private to "piste": ei. Private to "posts": o.
"piste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "posts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "piste" for "posts" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "piste" or "posts" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "piste" and "posts" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "piste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "posts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #384,413 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piste" and "posts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plots vs posts". 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 #384,413 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.