caléevsculteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#48,384
“calée” frequency rank
#3,131
“culte” frequency rank
51515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature calée culte
Definition Féminin singulier de calé. Qui a, ou a eu, un grand succès auprès d’un certain public et est devenu presque légendaire

Where the eye mixes calée and culte

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

5 ch
calée
5 ch
culte

Look-alike desk: calée vs culte

A purely visual mix-up. calée (\ka.le\) and culte (\kylt\) 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 51515, 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\. culte is at rank #3,131, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kylt\.

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 51515, this pair ranks #154,446 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of calée vs culte

Shared letters: cel. Private to "calée": . Private to "culte": tu.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cultecculte · clute · culet · cullte · cultte · cutle · uclte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "calée" and "culte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ka.le\ versus \kylt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "calée" vs "culte" - which ranks higher?
"culte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,131 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 "culte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #154,446 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "calée" and "culte" 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 #154,446 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