portvspotsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,169
“port” frequency rank
#8,442
“pots” frequency rank
9611
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes port and pots

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

4 ch
port
4 ch
pots

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. port (\pɔʁ\) and pots (\po\) 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 9611, 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\. pots is at rank #8,442, tagged as anoun, pronounced \po\.

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 9611, this pair ranks #416,041 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of port vs pots

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

"port" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pots" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portoprt · porrt · portt · potr · pport
  • potsopts · potss · potts · ppots · ptos

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "port" and "pots" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɔʁ\ versus \po\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "port" or "pots"?
"port" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,169 in our French list, against #8,442 for "pots". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "port" and "pots". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "port" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pots" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,041 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "port" and "pots" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pivots vs pots". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list