ponduvsponteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,311
“pondu” frequency rank
#18,831
“ponte” frequency rank
49142
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pondu ponte
Definition Feuille de manioc Action de pondre, pondaison.

Where the eye mixes pondu and ponte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pondu and ponte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
pondu
5 ch
ponte

Look-alike desk: pondu vs ponte

A purely visual mix-up. pondu (\pɔn.dy\) and ponte (\pɔ̃t\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49142, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pondu is recorded at frequency rank #30,311, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔn.dy\. ponte is at rank #18,831, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ̃t\.

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 49142, this pair ranks #173,116 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pondu vs ponte

Shared letters: nop. Private to "pondu": du. Private to "ponte": et.

"pondu" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "ponte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pondu ← opndu · pnodu · podnu · ponddu · ponndu · ponud · ppondu
  • ponte ← opnte · pnote · ponet · ponnte · pontte · potne · pponte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pondu" for "ponte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɔn.dy\ versus \pɔ̃t\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pondu" vs "ponte" - which ranks higher?
"ponte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,831 in our French list, against #30,311 for "pondu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pondu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ponte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,116 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pondu" and "ponte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pon vs pondu". 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 #173,116 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