Which to use
“bouée” and “butée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #23,786
- “bouée” frequency rank
- #46,043
- “butée” frequency rank
- 69829
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bouée | butée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Corps flottant destiné à marquer la place d’une ancre, d’un corps-mort ou d’un plongeur, ou à indiquer un danger, une passe difficile. | Dispositif servant à délimiter la course d’une pièce mobile. |
Where the eye mixes bouée and butée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bouée (CVVVV) and butée (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses bouée with butée
A purely visual mix-up. bouée (\bwe\) and butée (\by.te\) 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 69829, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bouée is recorded at frequency rank #23,786, classified as anoun, pronounced \bwe\. 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 69829, this pair ranks #53,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bouée vs butée
Shared letters: beué. Private to "bouée": o. Private to "butée": t.
"bouée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV · "butée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bouée" for "butée" ever safe?
Which is more common, "bouée" or "butée"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "bouée" and "butée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bouée" 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 #53,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bouée" and "butée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buses vs butée". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #53,648 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.