portavsPostWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: porta is a verb, Post is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“porta” is a verb and “Post” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,722
“porta” frequency rank
#1,966
“Post” frequency rank
17688
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature porta Post
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de porter. Nom de famille allemand, néerlandais.

Where the eye mixes porta and Post

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

5 ch
porta
4 ch
Post

Look-alike desk: porta vs Post

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: porta is \pɔʁ.ta\ while Post is \pɔst\. 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 (verb vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17688, 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\. Post is at rank #1,966, tagged as aname, 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 17688, this pair ranks #381,952 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of porta vs Post

Shared letters: opt. Private to "porta": ar. Private to "Post": s.

"porta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Post" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portaoprta · porat · porrta · portta · potra · pporta · prota
  • Postopst · posst · postt · ppost · psot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "porta" for "Post" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "porta" is a verb and "Post" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "porta" or "Post" show up more?
"Post" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,966 in our French list, against #15,722 for "porta". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "porta" and "Post" 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 "Post" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #381,952 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "porta" and "Post" 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 #381,952 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