portionvspotironTell them apart

Which to use

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

#7,101
“portion” frequency rank
#46,363
“potiron” frequency rank
53464
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature portion potiron
Definition Partie d’un tout divisé, ou considéré comme tel. Espèce de champignon.

Where the eye mixes portion and potiron

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
portion
7 ch
potiron

Why the eye confuses portion with potiron

A purely visual mix-up. portion (\pɔʁ.sjɔ̃\) and potiron (\pɔ.ti.ʁɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

portion is recorded at frequency rank #7,101, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.sjɔ̃\. potiron is at rank #46,363, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.ti.ʁɔ̃\.

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 53464, this pair ranks #140,554 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of portion vs potiron

Shared letters: inoprt. Private to "portion": -. Private to "potiron": -.

"portion" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "potiron" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portionoprtion · poriton · porrtion · portino · portionn · portoin · porttion · potrion
  • potironoptiron · poitron · potiorn · potirno · potironn · potirron · pottiron · ppotiron

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "portion" and "potiron" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɔʁ.sjɔ̃\ versus \pɔ.ti.ʁɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "portion" or "potiron" show up more?
"portion" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,101 in our French list, against #46,363 for "potiron". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "portion" and "potiron" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "portion" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "potiron" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #140,554 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "portion" and "potiron" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piron vs potiron". 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 #140,554 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