cette
\sɛt\
The verdict
“cette” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #55 in French word frequency and used as a determiner.
- #55
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Féminin singulier du déterminant démonstratif ce.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cette |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Determiner |
| IPA | \sɛt\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #55 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cette” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for cette is 5 letters long, classified as a determiner, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sɛt\. Corpus data places it at rank #55 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Féminin singulier du déterminant démonstratif ce.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for cette, with forms such as "ccette", "cete", and "cetet". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Cte", "cité", "côte", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is cette, spelled C-E-T-T-E.
Definition
- 1Féminin singulier du déterminant démonstratif ce.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccette,cete,cetet,ctete,ectte
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cette - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cette”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-E-T-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \sɛt\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Cte” - see the side-by-side comparison. cette vs Cte
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.