Which to use
“pointeur” and “puanteur” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #26,475
- “pointeur” frequency rank
- #44,117
- “puanteur” frequency rank
- 70592
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pointeur | puanteur |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Artilleur qui pointe le canon. | Odeur infecte. |
Where the eye mixes pointeur and puanteur
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. pointeur and puanteur follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between pointeur and puanteur
A purely visual mix-up. pointeur (\pwɛ̃.tœʁ\) and puanteur (\pɥɑ̃.tœʁ\) 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 70592, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pointeur is recorded at frequency rank #26,475, classified as anoun, pronounced \pwɛ̃.tœʁ\. puanteur is at rank #44,117, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɥɑ̃.tœʁ\.
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 70592, this pair ranks #50,767 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pointeur vs puanteur
Shared letters: enprtu. Private to "pointeur": io. Private to "puanteur": a.
"pointeur" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC · "puanteur" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pointeur" and "puanteur" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "pointeur" or "puanteur"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "pointeur" and "puanteur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "pointeur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "puanteur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #50,767 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pointeur" and "puanteur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "planeur vs puanteur". 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 #50,767 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.