portéevsportezTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#2,010
“portée” frequency rank
#11,638
“portez” frequency rank
13648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature portée portez
Definition Totalité des petits que les femelles des vivipares portent et mettent bas en une fois. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de porter.

Same sound, different letters: portée vs portez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. portée (CVCCVV) and portez (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
portée
6 ch
portez

Ear matches; page differs - portée and portez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: portée and portez 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 13648, 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\. portez is at rank #11,638, 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 13648, this pair ranks #400,143 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of portée vs portez

Shared letters: eoprt. Private to "portée": é. Private to "portez": z.

"portée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "portez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portezoprtez · poretz · porrtez · portezz · porttez · portze · potrez · pportez

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "portée" and "portez" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "portée" is a noun and "portez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "portée" vs "portez" - which ranks higher?
"portée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,010 in our French list, against #11,638 for "portez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "portée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "portez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #400,143 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "portée" and "portez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pontet vs portez". 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 #400,143 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