cartevsCteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#716
“carte” frequency rank
#42,264
“Cte” frequency rank
42980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carte Cte
Definition 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. Comte.

Where the eye mixes carte and Cte

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

5 ch
carte
3 ch
Cte

Visual trap between carte and Cte

A purely visual mix-up. carte (\kaʁt\) and Cte (\kɔ̃t\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carte is recorded at frequency rank #716, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʁt\. Cte is at rank #42,264, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃t\.

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 42980, this pair ranks #221,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of carte vs Cte

Shared letters: cet. Private to "carte": ar. Private to "Cte": -.

"carte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Cte" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "carte" for "Cte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kaʁt\ versus \kɔ̃t\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "carte" vs "Cte" - which ranks higher?
"carte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #716 in our French list, against #42,264 for "Cte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "carte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Cte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #221,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carte" and "Cte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs Cte". 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 #221,497 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