fête
\fɛt\
The verdict
“fête” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #943 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #943
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Jour consacré particulièrement à des actes de religion, cérémonies religieuses par lesquelles on célèbre ce jour.
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 | fête |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \fɛt\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #943 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fête” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for fête is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \fɛt\. Corpus data places it at rank #943 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for fête, with forms such as "fete", "ffête", and "ftêe". 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, "ft", "feu", "fit", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is fête, spelled F-Ê-T-E.
Definition
- 1Jour consacré particulièrement à des actes de religion, cérémonies religieuses par lesquelles on célèbre ce jour.
- 2Célébration du service divin en commémoration de quelque mystère, ou en l’honneur de quelque saint.
- 3Jour de la fête du saint dont une personne porte le prénom.
- 4Réjouissances publiques qui se font en certaines occasions extraordinaires. — Note d’usage : Dans ce sens, on l’emploie souvent au pluriel.
- 5Réjouissances qui se font dans des assemblées particulières.
- 6Anniversaire (fête annuelle du jour de la naissance d’un individu).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: fete,ffête,ftêe,fêet,fêtte,êfte
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of fête - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "fête"?
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Using “fête”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is F-Ê-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \fɛt\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ft” - see the side-by-side comparison. fête vs ft
- 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.