Which to use
“carpe” and “clarté” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,662
- “carpe” frequency rank
- #9,796
- “clarté” frequency rank
- 30458
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | carpe | clarté |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Poisson d’eau douce, de taille moyenne, originaire d'Asie (Chine surtout), de la famille des cyprinidés (Cyprinidae), comestible. | Lumière, lueur. |
Where the eye mixes carpe and clarté
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses carpe with clarté
A purely visual mix-up. carpe (\kaʁp\) and clarté (\klaʁ.te\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30458, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
carpe is recorded at frequency rank #20,662, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʁp\. clarté is at rank #9,796, tagged as anoun, pronounced \klaʁ.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 30458, this pair ranks #310,184 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of carpe vs clarté
Shared letters: acr. Private to "carpe": ep. Private to "clarté": lté.
"carpe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "clarté" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- carpe ← acrpe · capre · carep · carppe · carrpe · ccarpe · crape
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "carpe" for "clarté" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "carpe" or "clarté" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "carpe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "clarté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #310,184 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "carpe" and "clarté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carpe vs carrez". 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 #310,184 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.