Which to use
“portée” is a noun and “porter” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,010
- “portée” frequency rank
- #883
- “porter” frequency rank
- 2893
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portée | porter |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Totalité des petits que les femelles des vivipares portent et mettent bas en une fois. | Soutenir quelque chose ou quelqu’un. |
Same sound, different letters: portée vs porter
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Homophone desk: portée vs porter
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: portée and porter carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pɔ.ʁte\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2893, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portée is recorded at frequency rank #2,010, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.ʁte\. porter is at rank #883, tagged as averb, pronounced \pɔʁ.te\.
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 2893, this pair ranks #435,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of portée vs porter
Shared letters: eoprt. Private to "portée": é. Private to "porter": -.
"portée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "porter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- porter ← oprter · poretr · porrter · porterr · portre · portter · potrer · pporter
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "portée" and "porter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "portée" or "porter"?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "portée" / "porter". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "portée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "porter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #435,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portée" and "porter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pontet vs portée". 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 #435,269 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.