poséesvspowersWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,894
“posées” frequency rank
#27,576
“powers” frequency rank
37470
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature posées powers
Definition Pluriel de posée. Pluriel de power.

Where the eye mixes posées and powers

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
posées
6 ch
powers

Why the eye confuses posées with powers

A purely visual mix-up. posées (\po.ze\) and powers (\ˈpaʊ.ɚz\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37470, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

posées is recorded at frequency rank #9,894, classified as anoun, pronounced \po.ze\. powers is at rank #27,576, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈpaʊ.ɚz\.

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 37470, this pair ranks #262,298 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of posées vs powers

Shared letters: eops. Private to "posées": é. Private to "powers": rw.

"posées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "powers" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • powersopwers · poewrs · powerrs · powerss · powesr · powres · powwers · ppowers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "posées" for "powers" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\po.ze\ versus \ˈpaʊ.ɚz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "posées" vs "powers" - which ranks higher?
"posées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,894 in our French list, against #27,576 for "powers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "posées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "powers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #262,298 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "posées" and "powers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "potiers vs powers". 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 #262,298 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