Which to use
“portait” is a verb and “portante” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,362
- “portait” frequency rank
- #48,116
- “portante” frequency rank
- 52478
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portait | portante |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de porter. | Féminin singulier de portant. |
Where the eye mixes portait and portante
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. portait runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against portante's 8 (CVCCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: portait vs portante
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: portait is \pɔʁ.tɛ\ while portante is \pɔʁ.tɑ̃t\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52478, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portait is recorded at frequency rank #4,362, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔʁ.tɛ\. portante is at rank #48,116, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɔʁ.tɑ̃t\.
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 52478, this pair ranks #147,450 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of portait vs portante
Shared letters: aoprt. Private to "portait": i. Private to "portante": en.
"portait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC · "portante" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "portait" for "portante" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "portait" or "portante" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "portait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "portante" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #147,450 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portait" and "portante" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "parlante vs portante". 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 #147,450 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.