potagevspropagéConfusable pair

Quick tell: potage is a noun, propagé is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“potage” is a noun and “propagé” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,651
“potage” frequency rank
#31,660
“propagé” frequency rank
67311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature potage propagé
Definition Aliment demi-liquide, fait de bouillon et de tranches de pain ou de diverses substances alimentaires, légumes, pâtes, etc. Participe passé masculin singulier de propager.

Where the eye mixes potage and propagé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. potage runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against propagé's 7 (CCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
potage
7 ch
propagé

Why the eye confuses potage with propagé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: potage is \pɔ.taʒ\ while propagé is \pʁɔ.pa.ʒe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67311, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

potage is recorded at frequency rank #35,651, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.taʒ\. propagé is at rank #31,660, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁɔ.pa.ʒe\.

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 67311, this pair ranks #63,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of potage vs propagé

Shared letters: agop. Private to "potage": et. Private to "propagé": ré.

"potage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "propagé" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • potage ← optage · poatge · potaeg · potagge · potgae · pottage · ppotage · ptoage

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "potage" and "propagé" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "potage" is a noun and "propagé" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "potage" or "propagé" show up more?
"propagé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,660 in our French list, against #35,651 for "potage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "potage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "propagé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,953 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "potage" and "propagé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "potache vs potage". 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 #63,953 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