Which to use
“poursuive” and “poursuivent” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,538
- “poursuive” frequency rank
- #10,383
- “poursuivent” frequency rank
- 46921
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poursuive | poursuivent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de poursuivre. | Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de poursuivre. |
Same sound, different letters: poursuive vs poursuivent
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. poursuive runs 9 letters (CVVCCVVCV) against poursuivent's 11 (CVVCCVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - poursuive and poursuivent
This is the hard kind. poursuive and poursuivent are pronounced identically (\puʁ.sɥiv\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “poursuive” sits inside “poursuivent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poursuive is recorded at frequency rank #36,538, classified as averb, pronounced \puʁ.sɥiv\. poursuivent is at rank #10,383, tagged as averb, pronounced \puʁ.sɥiv\.
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 46921, this pair ranks #191,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of poursuive vs poursuivent
Shared letters: eioprsuv. Private to "poursuive": -. Private to "poursuivent": nt.
"poursuive" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVVCV · "poursuivent" · 11 letters · shape CVVCCVVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- poursuive ← opursuive · porusuive · pourrsuive · poursiuve · pourssuive · poursuiev · poursuivve · poursuvie
- poursuivent ← opursuivent · porusuivent · pourrsuivent · poursiuvent · pourssuivent · poursuievnt · poursuivennt · poursuiventt
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "poursuive" and "poursuivent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "poursuive" or "poursuivent" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "poursuive" / "poursuivent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "poursuive" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poursuivent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #191,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poursuive" and "poursuivent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poursuive vs poursuivez". 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 #191,002 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.