Which to use
“police” and “ponce” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #469
- “police” frequency rank
- #30,309
- “ponce” frequency rank
- 30778
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | police | ponce |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ordre, règlement établi dans un État, dans une ville, pour tout ce qui regarde la sûreté, la tranquillité et la commodité des citoyens, des habitants. | Pierre extrêmement sèche, poreuse et légère, qui est un produit des volcans. |
Where the eye mixes police and ponce
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between police and ponce
A purely visual mix-up. police (\pɔ.lis\) and ponce (\pɔ̃s\) 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 30778, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
police is recorded at frequency rank #469, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.lis\. ponce is at rank #30,309, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ̃s\.
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 30778, this pair ranks #308,050 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of police vs ponce
Shared letters: ceop. Private to "police": il. Private to "ponce": n.
"police" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "ponce" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "police" and "ponce" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "police" or "ponce"?
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 "police" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ponce" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #308,050 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "police" and "ponce" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ponce vs pontet". 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 #308,050 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.