ponvspouxWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,075
“pon” frequency rank
#19,111
“poux” frequency rank
62186
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pon poux
Definition Pont. Pluriel de pou.

Letter map: pon vs poux

Shared letters muted; letters that set pon and poux apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
pon
4 ch
poux

Corpus notes: pon and poux

pon and poux are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pon is recorded at frequency rank #43,075, classified as anoun. poux is at rank #19,111, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pu\.

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 62186, this pair ranks #88,409 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pon vs poux

Shared letters: op. Private to "pon": n. Private to "poux": ux.

"pon" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "poux" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pouxopux · pouxx · poxu · ppoux · puox

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pon" and "poux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "pon" vs "poux" - which ranks higher?
"poux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,111 in our French list, against #43,075 for "pon". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "pon" vs "poux" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #88,409 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pon" and "poux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs pon". 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 #88,409 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