Which to use
“poire” and “pole” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #15,720
- “poire” frequency rank
- #12,447
- “pole” frequency rank
- 28167
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poire | pole |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fruit à pépin, de saveur agréable, ordinairement de forme oblongue, et qui va en diminuant vers la queue. | Première place au départ d’une course de véhicules motorisés. |
Where the eye mixes poire and pole
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: poire vs pole
A purely visual mix-up. poire (\pwaʁ\) and pole (\pɔl\) 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 28167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poire is recorded at frequency rank #15,720, classified as anoun, pronounced \pwaʁ\. pole is at rank #12,447, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔl\.
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 28167, this pair ranks #324,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of poire vs pole
Shared letters: eop. Private to "poire": ir. Private to "pole": l.
"poire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "pole" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "poire" and "pole" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "poire" or "pole"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "poire" and "pole" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "poire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pole" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #324,491 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poire" and "pole" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poire vs priée". 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 #324,491 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.