portvspostsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#1,169
“port” frequency rank
#15,215
“posts” frequency rank
16384
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature port posts
Definition Havre côtier, refuge ou abri pour les bateaux les protégeant des vents et des tempêtes. Pluriel de post.

Where the eye mixes port and posts

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

4 ch
port
5 ch
posts

Visual trap between port and posts

A purely visual mix-up. port (\pɔʁ\) and posts (\pɔst\) 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 16384, 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\. posts is at rank #15,215, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔst\.

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 16384, this pair ranks #388,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of port vs posts

Shared letters: opt. Private to "port": r. Private to "posts": s.

"port" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "posts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portoprt · porrt · portt · potr · pport
  • postsopsts · possts · postss · postts · pposts · psots

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "port" for "posts" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɔʁ\ versus \pɔst\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "port" or "posts"?
"port" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,169 in our French list, against #15,215 for "posts". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "port" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "posts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "port" and "posts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plots vs posts". 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 #388,078 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