postentvsprêtentTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,655
“postent” frequency rank
#16,710
“prêtent” frequency rank
39365
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature postent prêtent
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de poster. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de prêter.

Where the eye mixes postent and prêtent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
postent
7 ch
prêtent

Why the eye confuses postent with prêtent

A purely visual mix-up. postent (\pɔst\) and prêtent (\pʁɛt\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39365, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

postent is recorded at frequency rank #22,655, classified as averb, pronounced \pɔst\. prêtent is at rank #16,710, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁɛt\.

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 39365, this pair ranks #248,544 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of postent vs prêtent

Shared letters: enpt. Private to "postent": os. Private to "prêtent": .

"postent" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "prêtent" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • postentopstent · posetnt · posstent · postennt · postentt · postetn · postnet · posttent

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "postent" for "prêtent" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\pɔst\ versus \pʁɛt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "postent" or "prêtent" show up more?
"prêtent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,710 in our French list, against #22,655 for "postent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "postent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prêtent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #248,544 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "postent" and "prêtent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pontet vs postent". 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 #248,544 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