Which to use
“portrait” and “portraits” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,538
- “portrait” frequency rank
- #6,542
- “portraits” frequency rank
- 9080
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | portrait | portraits |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Image, représentation d’une personne, faite avec le pinceau, le crayon, le burin, etc. | Pluriel de portrait. |
Same sound, different letters: portrait vs portraits
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - portrait and portraits
This is the hard kind. portrait and portraits are pronounced identically (\pɔʁ.tʁɛ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “portrait” sits inside “portraits”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9080, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
portrait is recorded at frequency rank #2,538, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.tʁɛ\. portraits is at rank #6,542, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔʁ.tʁɛ\.
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 9080, this pair ranks #417,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of portrait vs portraits
Shared letters: aioprt. Private to "portrait": -. Private to "portraits": s.
"portrait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC · "portraits" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "portrait" for "portraits" ever safe?
Which is more common, "portrait" or "portraits"?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "portrait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "portraits" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #417,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "portrait" and "portraits" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "porterai vs portrait". 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 #417,864 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.