captevscaptentWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14,876
“capte” frequency rank
#37,710
“captent” frequency rank
52586
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capte captent
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe capter. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe capter.

Same sound, different letters: capte vs captent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
capte
7 ch
captent

Homophone desk: capte vs captent

This is the hard kind. capte and captent are pronounced identically (\kapt\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “capte” sits inside “captent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52586, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

capte is recorded at frequency rank #14,876, classified as averb, pronounced \kapt\. captent is at rank #37,710, tagged as averb, pronounced \kapt\.

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 52586, this pair ranks #146,671 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of capte vs captent

Shared letters: acept. Private to "capte": -. Private to "captent": n.

"capte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "captent" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capteacpte · cappte · captte · catpe · ccapte · cpate
  • captentacptent · capetnt · capptent · captennt · captentt · captetn · captnet · capttent

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "capte" and "captent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kapt\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "capte" vs "captent" - which ranks higher?
"capte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,876 in our French list, against #37,710 for "captent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"capte" and "captent" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "capte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "captent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,671 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capte" and "captent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "campent vs captent". 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 #146,671 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