portvspûtTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,169
“port” frequency rank
#36,553
“pût” frequency rank
37722
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature port pût
Definition Havre côtier, refuge ou abri pour les bateaux les protégeant des vents et des tempêtes. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait du subjonctif du verbe pouvoir.

Where the eye mixes port and pût

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
port
3 ch
pût

Visual trap between port and pût

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: port is \pɔʁ\ while pût is \py\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37722, 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\. pût is at rank #36,553, tagged as averb, pronounced \py\.

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 37722, this pair ranks #260,418 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of port vs pût

Shared letters: pt. Private to "port": or. Private to "pût": û.

"port" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pût" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portoprt · porrt · portt · potr · pport

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "port" and "pût" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "port" is a noun and "pût" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "port" or "pût"?
"port" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,169 in our French list, against #36,553 for "pût". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "port" and "pût" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "port" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pût" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #260,418 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "port" and "pût" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs pût". 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 #260,418 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