Which to use
“poireau” and “poires” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #34,256
- “poireau” frequency rank
- #23,649
- “poires” frequency rank
- 57905
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poireau | poires |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Légume à feuilles longues et vertes, cultivées pour son pied blanc comestible. | Pluriel de poire. |
Where the eye mixes poireau and poires
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. poireau runs 7 letters (CVVCVVV) against poires's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between poireau and poires
A purely visual mix-up. poireau (\pwa.ʁo\) and poires (\pwaʁ\) 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 57905, 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\. poires is at rank #23,649, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pwaʁ\.
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 57905, this pair ranks #112,230 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of poireau vs poires
Shared letters: eiopr. Private to "poireau": au. Private to "poires": s.
"poireau" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVV · "poires" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "poireau" and "poires" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "poireau" or "poires" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "poireau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #112,230 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poireau" and "poires" 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 #112,230 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.