conte
French, noun
conte is spelled C-O-N-T-E (5 letters) and appears 15 times per million words in written French, the 4,746th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Conte is a French masculine noun meaning “tale; story” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of conter. With an accent, conté is a different word: “past participle of conter”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Récit d’aventures imaginaires, soit qu’elles aient de la vraisemblance ou que s’y mêle du merveilleux, du…”.
What does conte mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinetale; story
verb
- 1
first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- 2
second-person singular imperative
verb
- 1
past participle of conter
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Récit d’aventures imaginaires, soit qu’elles aient de la vraisemblance ou que s’y mêle du merveilleux, du féerique. 2. Forme littéraire courte et simple, issue de la tradition populaire et orale, généralement destinée aux lectures divertissantes du soir en communauté ou à l’instruction des enfants. 3. Histoire plaisante, vraie ou fausse, que l’on dit pour amuser, railler, médire, tromper, etc.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of conte
- contes plural
- contée feminine
- contés masculine plural
- contées feminine plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to conte
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is conte in French?
conte appears 15 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).