pouliesvspourriesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: poulies is a noun, pourries is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“poulies” is a noun and “pourries” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,932
“poulies” frequency rank
#22,656
“pourries” frequency rank
63588
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poulies pourries
Definition Pluriel de poulie. Féminin pluriel de pourri.

Where the eye mixes poulies and pourries

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. poulies runs 7 letters (CVVCVVC) against pourries's 8 (CVVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
poulies
8 ch
pourries

Visual trap between poulies and pourries

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: poulies is \pu.li\ while pourries is \pu.ʁi\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63588, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

poulies is recorded at frequency rank #40,932, classified as anoun, pronounced \pu.li\. pourries is at rank #22,656, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pu.ʁi\.

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 63588, this pair ranks #81,230 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of poulies vs pourries

Shared letters: eiopsu. Private to "poulies": l. Private to "pourries": r.

"poulies" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "pourries" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pouliesopulies · poluies · pouiles · pouleis · pouliess · poulise · poullies · ppoulies
  • pourriesopurries · poruries · pouries · pourires · pourreis · pourriess · pourrise · ppourries

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "poulies" for "pourries" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "poulies" is a noun and "pourries" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "poulies" vs "pourries" - which ranks higher?
"pourries" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,656 in our French list, against #40,932 for "poulies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "poulies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pourries" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,230 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poulies" and "pourries" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poulies 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 #81,230 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