pommevsPompéiTell them apart

Quick tell: pomme is a noun, Pompéi is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pomme” is a noun and “Pompéi” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,518
“pomme” frequency rank
#32,529
“Pompéi” frequency rank
37047
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pomme Pompéi
Definition Fruit du pommier, de forme ronde, à la chair ferme et de saveur diverse. Ville romaine située dans l'Italie actuelle, en Campanie, au pied du Vésuve. Elle est célèbre pour avoir été détruite en même temps qu'Herculanum, Oplontis et Stabies, à la suite d’une éruption du Vésuve à une date située traditionnellement le 24 août 79.

Where the eye mixes pomme and Pompéi

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pomme runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against Pompéi's 6 (CVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pomme
6 ch
Pompéi

Why the eye confuses pomme with Pompéi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pomme is \pɔm\ while Pompéi is \pɔ̃.pe.i\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37047, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pomme is recorded at frequency rank #4,518, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔm\. Pompéi is at rank #32,529, tagged as aname, pronounced \pɔ̃.pe.i\.

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 37047, this pair ranks #265,257 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pomme vs Pompéi

Shared letters: mop. Private to "pomme": e. Private to "Pompéi": ié.

"pomme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Pompéi" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pomme ← opmme · pmome · pome · pomem · ppomme

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pomme" for "Pompéi" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pomme" is a noun and "Pompéi" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pomme" vs "Pompéi" - which ranks higher?
"pomme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,518 in our French list, against #32,529 for "Pompéi". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "pomme" and "Pompéi" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pomme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Pompéi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #265,257 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pomme" and "Pompéi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pompéi vs popper". 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 #265,257 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