pochevspocketTell them apart

Which to use

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

#2,689
“poche” frequency rank
#28,693
“pocket” frequency rank
31382
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poche pocket
Definition Contenant souple servant au transport d’objets ou de liquides. Poche de vêtement.

Where the eye mixes poche and pocket

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. poche runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against pocket's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
poche
6 ch
pocket

Look-alike desk: poche vs pocket

A purely visual mix-up. poche (\pɔʃ\) and pocket (\ˈpɒ.kɪt\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31382, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

poche is recorded at frequency rank #2,689, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔʃ\. pocket is at rank #28,693, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈpɒ.kɪt\.

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 31382, this pair ranks #304,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of poche vs pocket

Shared letters: ceop. Private to "poche": h. Private to "pocket": kt.

"poche" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pocket" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • poche ← opche · pcohe · pocche · poceh · pochhe · pohce · ppoche
  • pocket ← opcket · pcoket · poccket · pocekt · pockett · pockket · pockte · pokcet

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "poche" and "pocket" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɔʃ\ versus \ˈpɒ.kɪt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "poche" or "pocket"?
"poche" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,689 in our French list, against #28,693 for "pocket". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "poche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pocket" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #304,154 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poche" and "pocket" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pocket vs pontet". 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 #304,154 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