Which to use
“portière” and “postier” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,241
- “portière” frequency rank
- #48,117
- “postier” frequency rank
- 68358
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portière | postier |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Femme dont la profession est de garder une porte d’entrée. | Agent, employé du service des postes. |
Where the eye mixes portière and postier
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. portière runs 8 letters (CVCCVVCV) against postier's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses portière with postier
A purely visual mix-up. portière (\pɔʁ.tjɛʁ\) and postier (\pɔs.tje\) 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 68358, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portière is recorded at frequency rank #20,241, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.tjɛʁ\. postier is at rank #48,117, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔs.tje\.
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 68358, this pair ranks #59,510 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of portière vs postier
Shared letters: eioprt. Private to "portière": è. Private to "postier": s.
"portière" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCV · "postier" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- postier ← opstier · positer · posstier · posteir · postierr · postire · posttier · potsier
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "portière" and "postier" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "portière" vs "postier" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "portière" and "postier" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "portière" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "postier" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #59,510 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portière" and "postier" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "postier 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 #59,510 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.