buttesvsbuttonWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,412
“buttes” frequency rank
#27,353
“button” frequency rank
62765
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature buttes button
Definition Pluriel de butte. Butte.

Where the eye mixes buttes and button

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
buttes
6 ch
button

Why the eye confuses buttes with button

A purely visual mix-up. buttes (\byt\) and button (\by.tɔ̃\) 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 62765, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

buttes is recorded at frequency rank #35,412, classified as anoun, pronounced \byt\. button is at rank #27,353, tagged as anoun, pronounced \by.tɔ̃\.

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 62765, this pair ranks #85,415 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of buttes vs button

Shared letters: btu. Private to "buttes": es. Private to "button": no.

"buttes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "button" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • buttesbbuttes · btutes · butes · butets · buttess · buttse · ubttes
  • buttonbbutton · btuton · buton · butotn · buttno · buttonn · ubtton

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "buttes" and "button" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\byt\ versus \by.tɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "buttes" or "button"?
"button" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,353 in our French list, against #35,412 for "buttes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "buttes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "button" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,415 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "buttes" and "button" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buses vs buttes". 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 #85,415 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