PostvsPTTTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,966
“Post” frequency rank
#40,940
“PTT” frequency rank
42906
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Post PTT
Definition Nom de famille allemand, néerlandais. Ancienne administration proposant des services de poste, télégraphe et téléphone.

Where the eye mixes Post and PTT

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Post
3 ch
PTT

Why the eye confuses Post with PTT

A purely visual mix-up. Post (\pɔst\) and PTT (\pe.te.te\) 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 42906, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Post is recorded at frequency rank #1,966, classified as aname, pronounced \pɔst\. PTT is at rank #40,940, tagged as aname, pronounced \pe.te.te\.

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 42906, this pair ranks #222,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Post vs PTT

Shared letters: pt. Private to "Post": os. Private to "PTT": -.

"Post" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "PTT" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Postopst · posst · postt · ppost · psot

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Post" and "PTT" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pɔst\ versus \pe.te.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Post" vs "PTT" - which ranks higher?
"Post" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,966 in our French list, against #40,940 for "PTT". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Post" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "PTT" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #222,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Post" and "PTT" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pio vs PTT". 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 #222,017 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