portéesvsporteursTell them apart

Which to use

“portées” and “porteurs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#7,881
“portées” frequency rank
#7,480
“porteurs” frequency rank
15361
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature portées porteurs
Definition Féminin pluriel de porté. Masculin pluriel de porteur.

Where the eye mixes portées and porteurs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. portées runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against porteurs's 8 (CVCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
portées
8 ch
porteurs

Visual trap between portées and porteurs

A purely visual mix-up. portées (\pɔʁ.te\) and porteurs (\pɔʁ.tœʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15361, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

portées is recorded at frequency rank #7,881, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɔʁ.te\. porteurs is at rank #7,480, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɔʁ.tœʁ\.

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 15361, this pair ranks #392,692 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of portées vs porteurs

Shared letters: eoprst. Private to "portées": é. Private to "porteurs": u.

"portées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "porteurs" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • porteurs ← oprteurs · poreturs · porrteurs · porterus · porteurrs · porteurss · porteusr · portteurs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "portées" for "porteurs" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɔʁ.te\ versus \pɔʁ.tœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "portées" or "porteurs" show up more?
"porteurs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,480 in our French list, against #7,881 for "portées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "portées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "porteurs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,692 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "portées" and "porteurs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "portées vs prêtées". 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 #392,692 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