poirevsprizeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: poire is a noun, prize is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“poire” is a noun and “prize” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,720
“poire” frequency rank
#41,972
“prize” frequency rank
57692
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poire prize
Definition Fruit à pépin, de saveur agréable, ordinairement de forme oblongue, et qui va en diminuant vers la queue. Forcer.

Where the eye mixes poire and prize

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. poire (CVVCV) and prize (CCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
poire
5 ch
prize

Visual trap between poire and prize

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: poire is \pwaʁ\ while prize is \praɪz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57692, 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\. prize is at rank #41,972, tagged as averb, pronounced \praɪz\.

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 57692, this pair ranks #113,507 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of poire vs prize

Shared letters: eipr. Private to "poire": o. Private to "prize": z.

"poire" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "prize" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • poire ← opire · piore · poier · poirre · ppoire
  • prize ← pirze · pprize · prizze · prrize · przie · rpize

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "poire" for "prize" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "poire" is a noun and "prize" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "poire" vs "prize" - which ranks higher?
"poire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,720 in our French list, against #41,972 for "prize". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "poire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prize" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #113,507 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poire" and "prize" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "priée vs prize". 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 #113,507 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