Which to use
“poireau” and “poireaux” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #34,256
- “poireau” frequency rank
- #35,211
- “poireaux” frequency rank
- 69467
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poireau | poireaux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Légume à feuilles longues et vertes, cultivées pour son pied blanc comestible. | Pluriel de poireau. |
Same sound, different letters: poireau vs poireaux
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. poireau runs 7 letters (CVVCVVV) against poireaux's 8 (CVVCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - poireau / poireaux
This is the hard kind. poireau and poireaux are pronounced identically (\pwa.ʁo\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “poireau” sits inside “poireaux”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69467, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poireau is recorded at frequency rank #34,256, classified as anoun, pronounced \pwa.ʁo\. poireaux is at rank #35,211, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwa.ʁo\.
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 69467, this pair ranks #54,993 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of poireau vs poireaux
Shared letters: aeiopru. Private to "poireau": -. Private to "poireaux": x.
"poireau" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVV · "poireaux" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "poireau" and "poireaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "poireau" vs "poireaux" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "poireau" / "poireaux". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "poireau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poireaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #54,993 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poireau" and "poireaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poireau vs préau". 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 #54,993 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.