pommevsposeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“pomme” and “pose” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#4,518
“pomme” frequency rank
#1,147
“pose” frequency rank
5665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pomme pose
Definition Fruit du pommier, de forme ronde, à la chair ferme et de saveur diverse. Action de poser, de mettre en place.

Where the eye mixes pomme and pose

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
pomme
4 ch
pose

Why the eye confuses pomme with pose

A purely visual mix-up. pomme (\pɔm\) and pose (\poz\) 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 5665, 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\. pose is at rank #1,147, tagged as anoun, pronounced \poz\.

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 5665, this pair ranks #428,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pomme vs pose

Shared letters: eop. Private to "pomme": m. Private to "pose": s.

"pomme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pommeopmme · pmome · pome · pomem · ppomme
  • poseopse · poes · posse · ppose · psoe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pomme" and "pose" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɔm\ versus \poz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pomme" or "pose"?
"pose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,147 in our French list, against #4,518 for "pomme". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pomme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #428,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pomme" and "pose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peso vs pose". 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 #428,399 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