Which to use
“poêle” and “porte” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,837
- “poêle” frequency rank
- #284
- “porte” frequency rank
- 13121
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poêle | porte |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ustensile de cuisine, rond ou ovale, peu profond et à bords évasés, muni d’une longue queue et dont on se sert pour cuire les aliments. | Ouverture battante dans un mur qui permet d’entrer ou sortir d’un endroit. |
Where the eye mixes poêle and porte
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. poêle (CVVCV) and porte (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses poêle with porte
A purely visual mix-up. poêle (\pwal\) and porte (\pɔʁt\) 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 13121, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poêle is recorded at frequency rank #12,837, classified as anoun, pronounced \pwal\. porte is at rank #284, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁt\.
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 13121, this pair ranks #402,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of poêle vs porte
Shared letters: eop. Private to "poêle": lê. Private to "porte": rt.
"poêle" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "porte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- porte ← oprte · poret · porrte · portte · potre · pporte · prote
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "poêle" and "porte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "poêle" or "porte" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "poêle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "porte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #402,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poêle" and "porte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peler vs poêle". 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 #402,345 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.