arêtesvsartusTell them apart

Quick tell: arêtes is a noun, artus is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“arêtes” is a noun and “artus” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,766
“arêtes” frequency rank
#40,127
“artus” frequency rank
63893
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arêtes artus
Definition Pluriel de arête. Étroit, serré.

Letter map: arêtes vs artus

Shared letters muted; letters that set arêtes and artus apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. arêtes runs 6 letters (VCVCVC) against artus's 5 (VCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
arêtes
5 ch
artus

Grammar separator: arêtes vs artus

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: arêtes is anoun and artusanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63893, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arêtes is recorded at frequency rank #23,766, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ʁɛt\. artus is at rank #40,127, tagged as anadj.

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 63893, this pair ranks #79,691 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of arêtes vs artus

Shared letters: arst. Private to "arêtes": eê. Private to "artus": u.

"arêtes" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "artus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • artus ← arrtus · artsu · arttus · artuss · aruts · atrus · ratus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "arêtes" and "artus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arêtes" is a noun and "artus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "arêtes" vs "artus" - which ranks higher?
"arêtes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,766 in our French list, against #40,127 for "artus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "arêtes" vs "artus" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arêtes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "artus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,691 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arêtes" and "artus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arti vs artus". 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 #79,691 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