battuevsbetteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,341
“battue” frequency rank
#35,827
“bette” frequency rank
44168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature battue bette
Definition Action de plusieurs personnes qui battent les bois et les taillis pour en faire sortir le gibier. Beta, genre de plantes de la famille des Amaranthacées.

Where the eye mixes battue and bette

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. battue runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against bette's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
battue
5 ch
bette

Visual trap between battue and bette

A purely visual mix-up. battue (\ba.ty\) and bette (\bɛt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

battue is recorded at frequency rank #8,341, classified as anoun, pronounced \ba.ty\. bette is at rank #35,827, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bɛt\.

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 44168, this pair ranks #212,514 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of battue vs bette

Shared letters: bet. Private to "battue": au. Private to "bette": -.

"battue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "bette" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • battueabttue · batteu · batue · batute · bbattue · btatue
  • bettebbette · betet · btete · ebtte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "battue" for "bette" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ba.ty\ versus \bɛt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "battue" vs "bette" - which ranks higher?
"battue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,341 in our French list, against #35,827 for "bette". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "battue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bette" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,514 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "battue" and "bette" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "beton vs bette". 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 #212,514 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