poursuisvspourvuesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#33,409
“poursuis” frequency rank
#36,106
“pourvues” frequency rank
69515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poursuis pourvues
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de poursuivre. Participe passé féminin pluriel de pourvoir.

Where the eye mixes poursuis and pourvues

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. poursuis and pourvues follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
poursuis
8 ch
pourvues

Visual trap between poursuis and pourvues

A purely visual mix-up. poursuis (\puʁ.sɥi\) and pourvues (\puʁ.vy\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69515, 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\. pourvues is at rank #36,106, tagged as averb, pronounced \puʁ.vy\.

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 69515, this pair ranks #54,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of poursuis vs pourvues

Shared letters: oprsu. Private to "poursuis": i. Private to "pourvues": ev.

"poursuis" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC  ·  "pourvues" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • poursuisopursuis · porusuis · pourrsuis · poursius · pourssuis · poursuiss · poursusi · pourusis
  • pourvuesopurvues · poruvues · pourrvues · pouruves · pourveus · pourvuess · pourvuse · pourvvues

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "poursuis" for "pourvues" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\puʁ.sɥi\ versus \puʁ.vy\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "poursuis" vs "pourvues" - which ranks higher?
"poursuis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,409 in our French list, against #36,106 for "pourvues". 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 "poursuis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pourvues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poursuis" and "pourvues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pourpres vs pourvues". 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 #54,830 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