poutrevspoutresConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#15,725
“poutre” frequency rank
#18,024
“poutres” frequency rank
33749
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poutre poutres
Definition Pièce de bois de forme allongée, servant dans les constructions à supporter une charpente ou un parquet. Pluriel de poutre.

Same sound, different letters: poutre vs poutres

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. poutre runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against poutres's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
poutre
7 ch
poutres

Ear matches; page differs - poutre and poutres

This is the hard kind. poutre and poutres are pronounced identically (\putʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “poutre” sits inside “poutres”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33749, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

poutre is recorded at frequency rank #15,725, classified as anoun, pronounced \putʁ\. poutres is at rank #18,024, tagged as anoun, pronounced \putʁ\.

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 33749, this pair ranks #288,523 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of poutre vs poutres

Shared letters: eoprtu. Private to "poutre": -. Private to "poutres": s.

"poutre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "poutres" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • poutreoputre · poture · pourte · pouter · poutrre · pouttre · ppoutre · puotre
  • poutresoputres · potures · pourtes · pouters · poutress · poutrres · poutrse · pouttres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "poutre" and "poutres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\putʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "poutre" vs "poutres" - which ranks higher?
"poutre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,725 in our French list, against #18,024 for "poutres". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "poutre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poutres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #288,523 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poutre" and "poutres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pourpres vs poutres". 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 #288,523 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