Which to use
“porta” is a verb and “portail” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,722
- “porta” frequency rank
- #5,275
- “portail” frequency rank
- 20997
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | porta | portail |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de porter. | Grande porte. |
Where the eye mixes porta and portail
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. porta runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against portail's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: porta vs portail
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: porta is \pɔʁ.ta\ while portail is \pɔʁ.taj\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “porta” sits inside “portail”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20997, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
porta is recorded at frequency rank #15,722, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔʁ.ta\. portail is at rank #5,275, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.taj\.
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 20997, this pair ranks #365,394 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of porta vs portail
Shared letters: aoprt. Private to "porta": -. Private to "portail": il.
"porta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "portail" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "porta" and "portail" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "porta" or "portail"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "porta" and "portail" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "porta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "portail" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #365,394 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "porta" and "portail" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parka vs porta". 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 #365,394 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.