charityvscharteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#49,548
“charity” frequency rank
#2,811
“charte” frequency rank
52359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature charity charte
Definition Charité. Acte écrit public ou privé de l’époque médiévale, fait et passé devant témoins et portant le plus souvent le sceau de son auteur.

Where the eye mixes charity and charte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. charity runs 7 letters (CCVCVCV) against charte's 6 (CCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
charity
6 ch
charte

Why the eye confuses charity with charte

A purely visual mix-up. charity (\ˈt͡ʃæɹ.ɪ.ti\) and charte (\ʃaʁt\) 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 52359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

charity is recorded at frequency rank #49,548, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈt͡ʃæɹ.ɪ.ti\. charte is at rank #2,811, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃaʁt\.

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 52359, this pair ranks #148,277 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of charity vs charte

Shared letters: achrt. Private to "charity": iy. Private to "charte": e.

"charity" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV  ·  "charte" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • charity ← cahrity · ccharity · chairty · charitty · charityy · chariyt · charrity · chartiy
  • charte ← cahrte · ccharte · charet · charrte · chartte · chatre · chharte · chrate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "charity" for "charte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈt͡ʃæɹ.ɪ.ti\ versus \ʃaʁt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "charity" or "charte"?
"charte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,811 in our French list, against #49,548 for "charity". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "charity" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "charte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #148,277 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "charity" and "charte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "charity vs charts". 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 #148,277 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