Which to use
“portier” and “portière” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,970
- “portier” frequency rank
- #20,241
- “portière” frequency rank
- 37211
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portier | portière |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Homme dont la profession est de garder une porte d’entrée. | Femme dont la profession est de garder une porte d’entrée. |
Where the eye mixes portier and portière
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. portier runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against portière's 8 (CVCCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between portier and portière
A purely visual mix-up. portier (\pɔʁ.tje\) and portière (\pɔʁ.tjɛʁ\) 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 37211, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portier is recorded at frequency rank #16,970, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.tje\. portière is at rank #20,241, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.tjɛʁ\.
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 37211, this pair ranks #264,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of portier vs portière
Shared letters: eioprt. Private to "portier": -. Private to "portière": è.
"portier" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC · "portière" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- portier ← oprtier · poriter · porrtier · porteir · portierr · portire · porttier · potrier
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "portier" and "portière" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "portier" or "portière" show up more?
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 "portier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "portière" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #264,088 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portier" and "portière" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "portière vs potiers". 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 #264,088 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.