Which to use
“poulie” is a noun and “publié” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,537
- “poulie” frequency rank
- #811
- “publié” frequency rank
- 37348
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poulie | publié |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Accessoire formé d’une roue avec ou sans gorge, crantée ou non, rainurée ou non,tournant sur un axe et permettant sur sa jante le déplacement ou le renvoi d'une corde, d'un câble, d'une chaîne ou d'une courroie. | Participe passé masculin singulier de publier. |
Where the eye mixes poulie and publié
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. poulie (CVVCVV) and publié (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: poulie vs publié
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: poulie is \pu.li\ while publié is \py.bli.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37348, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poulie is recorded at frequency rank #36,537, classified as anoun, pronounced \pu.li\. publié is at rank #811, tagged as averb, pronounced \py.bli.je\.
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 37348, this pair ranks #263,105 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of poulie vs publié
Shared letters: ilpu. Private to "poulie": eo. Private to "publié": bé.
"poulie" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV · "publié" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- poulie ← opulie · poluie · pouile · poulei · poullie · ppoulie · puolie
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "poulie" for "publié" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "poulie" or "publié" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "poulie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "publié" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #263,105 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poulie" and "publié" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poulie vs pouliot". 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 #263,105 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.