caléevscarteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: calée is a adjective, carte is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“calée” is an adjective and “carte” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,384
“calée” frequency rank
#716
“carte” frequency rank
49100
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature calée carte
Definition Féminin singulier de calé. Représentation géométrique conventionnelle, en positions relatives, de phénomènes concrets ou abstraits (pays, région, ville, astres dans le ciel, etc.), localisables dans l’espace, à échelle réduite.

Where the eye mixes calée and carte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
calée
5 ch
carte

Why the eye confuses calée with carte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: calée is \ka.le\ while carte is \kaʁt\. 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 49100, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

calée is recorded at frequency rank #48,384, classified as anadj, pronounced \ka.le\. carte is at rank #716, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kaʁt\.

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 49100, this pair ranks #173,488 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of calée vs carte

Shared letters: ace. Private to "calée": . Private to "carte": rt.

"calée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "carte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carteacrte · caret · carrte · cartte · catre · ccarte · crate

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "calée" and "carte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "calée" is an adjective and "carte" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "calée" or "carte"?
"carte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #716 in our French list, against #48,384 for "calée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "calée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "carte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,488 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "calée" and "carte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs calée". 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 #173,488 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