battitvsbattreWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“battit” and “battre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#40,622
“battit” frequency rank
#1,765
“battre” frequency rank
42387
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature battit battre
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de battre. Frapper de coups répétés.

Where the eye mixes battit and battre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. battit (CVCCVC) and battre (CVCCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
battit
6 ch
battre

Why the eye confuses battit with battre

A purely visual mix-up. battit (\ba.ti\) and battre (\batʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42387, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

battit is recorded at frequency rank #40,622, classified as averb, pronounced \ba.ti\. battre is at rank #1,765, tagged as averb, pronounced \batʁ\.

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 42387, this pair ranks #226,016 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of battit vs battre

Shared letters: abt. Private to "battit": i. Private to "battre": er.

"battit" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "battre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • battitabttit · batitt · battitt · battti · bbattit · btatit
  • battreabttre · batre · batrte · batter · battrre · bbattre · btatre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "battit" and "battre" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ba.ti\ versus \batʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "battit" or "battre"?
"battre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,765 in our French list, against #40,622 for "battit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "battit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "battre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #226,016 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "battit" and "battre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "battit vs bottin". 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 #226,016 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