Which to use
“bâtie” is an adjective and “butée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,620
- “bâtie” frequency rank
- #46,043
- “butée” frequency rank
- 60663
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bâtie | butée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de bâti. | Dispositif servant à délimiter la course d’une pièce mobile. |
Where the eye mixes bâtie and butée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bâtie and butée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses bâtie with butée
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bâtie is \bɑ.ti\ while butée is \by.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60663, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bâtie is recorded at frequency rank #14,620, classified as anadj, pronounced \bɑ.ti\. butée is at rank #46,043, tagged as anoun, pronounced \by.te\.
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 60663, this pair ranks #96,452 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bâtie vs butée
Shared letters: bet. Private to "bâtie": iâ. Private to "butée": ué.
"bâtie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "butée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "bâtie" and "butée" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "bâtie" or "butée" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "bâtie" and "butée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bâtie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "butée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #96,452 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bâtie" and "butée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buses vs butée". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #96,452 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.