Which to use
“porter” is a verb and “poste” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #883
- “porter” frequency rank
- #695
- “poste” frequency rank
- 1578
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | porter | poste |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Soutenir quelque chose ou quelqu’un. | Établissement de chevaux qui était autrefois placé de distance en distance, pour le service des voyageurs. |
Where the eye mixes porter and poste
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between porter and poste
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: porter is \pɔʁ.te\ while poste 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
porter is recorded at frequency rank #883, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔʁ.te\. poste is at rank #695, tagged as anoun, 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 1578, this pair ranks #437,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of porter vs poste
Shared letters: eopt. Private to "porter": r. Private to "poste": s.
"porter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "poste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "porter" and "poste" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "porter" vs "poste" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "porter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #437,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "porter" and "poste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pontet vs porter". 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 #437,800 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.