Which to use
“cible” is a noun and “citée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,511
- “cible” frequency rank
- #9,448
- “citée” frequency rank
- 11959
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cible | citée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sorte de planche servant de but pour le tir à l’arc ou avec des armes à feu. | Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe citer. |
Where the eye mixes cible and citée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cible (CVCCV) and citée (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: cible vs citée
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cible is \sibl\ while citée is \si.te\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11959, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cible is recorded at frequency rank #2,511, classified as anoun, pronounced \sibl\. citée is at rank #9,448, tagged as averb, pronounced \si.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 11959, this pair ranks #407,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of cible vs citée
Shared letters: cei. Private to "cible": bl. Private to "citée": té.
"cible" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "citée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- cible ← cbile · ccible · cibble · cibel · ciblle · cilbe · icble
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cible" for "citée" ever safe?
Frequency check: "cible" vs "citée" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "cible" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "citée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #407,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cible" and "citée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "calée vs citée". 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 #407,129 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.