portvsportezWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: port is a noun, portez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“port” is a noun and “portez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,169
“port” frequency rank
#11,638
“portez” frequency rank
12807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature port portez
Definition Havre côtier, refuge ou abri pour les bateaux les protégeant des vents et des tempêtes. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de porter.

Where the eye mixes port and portez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. port runs 4 letters (CVCC) against portez's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
port
6 ch
portez

Why the eye confuses port with portez

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: port is \pɔʁ\ while portez is \pɔʁ.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “port” sits inside “portez”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

port is recorded at frequency rank #1,169, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ\. portez is at rank #11,638, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɔʁ.te\.

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 12807, this pair ranks #403,668 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of port vs portez

Shared letters: oprt. Private to "port": -. Private to "portez": ez.

"port" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "portez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portoprt · porrt · portt · potr · pport
  • portezoprtez · poretz · porrtez · portezz · porttez · portze · potrez · pportez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "port" for "portez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "port" is a noun and "portez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "port" vs "portez" - which ranks higher?
"port" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,169 in our French list, against #11,638 for "portez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "port" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "portez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #403,668 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "port" and "portez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pontet vs portez". 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 #403,668 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