chantévschasteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: chanté is a verb, chaste is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chanté” is a verb and “chaste” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,353
“chanté” frequency rank
#42,791
“chaste” frequency rank
51144
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chanté chaste
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe chanter. Qui s'abstient des plaisirs de la chair.

Where the eye mixes chanté and chaste

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
chanté
6 ch
chaste

Visual trap between chanté and chaste

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: chanté is \ʃɑ̃.te\ while chaste is \ʃast\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51144, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chanté is recorded at frequency rank #8,353, classified as averb, pronounced \ʃɑ̃.te\. chaste is at rank #42,791, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʃast\.

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 51144, this pair ranks #157,237 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chanté vs chaste

Shared letters: acht. Private to "chanté": . Private to "chaste": es.

"chanté" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "chaste" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chastecahste · cchaste · chaset · chasste · chastte · chatse · chhaste · chsate

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "chanté" and "chaste" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chanté" is a verb and "chaste" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "chanté" or "chaste" show up more?
"chanté" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,353 in our French list, against #42,791 for "chaste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "chanté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chaste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,237 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chanté" and "chaste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chapter vs chaste". 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 #157,237 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