postulatvspostulatsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,038
“postulat” frequency rank
#45,238
“postulats” frequency rank
67276
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature postulat postulats
Definition Proposition que le géomètre demande qu’on lui accorde au commencement d’une discussion, bien qu’elle ne soit ni démontrée ni évidente, parce qu’il ne voit pas d’autre principe auquel il puisse rattacher une vérité ou des vérités qu’on ne saurait mettre en doute. Autrement dit une proposition première indémontrable ou indémontrée, et que le mathématicien demande au lecteur d’accepter. Le postulat n’est pas forcément évident, contrairement à l’axiome. Pluriel de postulat.

Same sound, different letters: postulat vs postulats

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. postulat runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against postulats's 9 (CVCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
postulat
9 ch
postulats

Homophone desk: postulat vs postulats

This is the hard kind. postulat and postulats are pronounced identically (\pɔs.ty.la\) 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) - “postulat” sits inside “postulats”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67276, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

postulat is recorded at frequency rank #22,038, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔs.ty.la\. postulats is at rank #45,238, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔs.ty.la\.

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 67276, this pair ranks #64,107 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of postulat vs postulats

Shared letters: alopstu. Private to "postulat": -. Private to "postulats": -.

"postulat" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "postulats" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • postulat ← opstulat · posstulat · postluat · posttulat · postualt · postulatt · postullat · postulta
  • postulats ← opstulats · posstulats · postluats · posttulats · postualts · postulast · postulatss · postulatts

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "postulat" and "postulats" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pɔs.ty.la\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "postulat" or "postulats" show up more?
"postulat" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,038 in our French list, against #45,238 for "postulats". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"postulat" and "postulats" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "postulat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "postulats" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,107 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "postulat" and "postulats" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "postulants vs postulats". 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 #64,107 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