poursuisvspoursuiteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#33,409
“poursuis” frequency rank
#3,634
“poursuite” frequency rank
37043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poursuis poursuite
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de poursuivre. Action de celui ou de celle qui poursuit un homme ou un animal, qui court après pour l’atteindre, pour le prendre.

Where the eye mixes poursuis and poursuite

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. poursuis runs 8 letters (CVVCCVVC) against poursuite's 9 (CVVCCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
poursuis
9 ch
poursuite

Visual trap between poursuis and poursuite

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: poursuis is \puʁ.sɥi\ while poursuite is \puʁ.sɥit\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

poursuis is recorded at frequency rank #33,409, classified as averb, pronounced \puʁ.sɥi\. poursuite is at rank #3,634, tagged as anoun, pronounced \puʁ.sɥit\.

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 37043, this pair ranks #265,284 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of poursuis vs poursuite

Shared letters: ioprsu. Private to "poursuis": -. Private to "poursuite": et.

"poursuis" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC  ·  "poursuite" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • poursuisopursuis · porusuis · pourrsuis · poursius · pourssuis · poursuiss · poursusi · pourusis
  • poursuiteopursuite · porusuite · pourrsuite · poursiute · pourssuite · poursuiet · poursuitte · poursutie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "poursuis" for "poursuite" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "poursuis" is a verb and "poursuite" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "poursuis" or "poursuite" show up more?
"poursuite" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,634 in our French list, against #33,409 for "poursuis". 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 "poursuis" and "poursuite" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "poursuis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poursuite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #265,284 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poursuis" and "poursuite" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poursuis vs poursuive". 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 #265,284 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