cimesvscomtésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#37,727
“cimes” frequency rank
#18,441
“comtés” frequency rank
56168
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cimes comtés
Definition Pluriel de cime. Pluriel de comté.

Where the eye mixes cimes and comtés

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

5 ch
cimes
6 ch
comtés

Visual trap between cimes and comtés

A purely visual mix-up. cimes (\sim\) and comtés (\kɔ̃.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 56168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cimes is recorded at frequency rank #37,727, classified as anoun, pronounced \sim\. comtés is at rank #18,441, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃.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 56168, this pair ranks #122,790 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cimes vs comtés

Shared letters: cms. Private to "cimes": ei. Private to "comtés": oté.

"cimes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "comtés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cimesccimes · ciems · cimess · cimmes · cimse · cmies · icmes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cimes" for "comtés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sim\ versus \kɔ̃.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cimes" or "comtés"?
"comtés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,441 in our French list, against #37,727 for "cimes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cimes" and "comtés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cimes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "comtés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #122,790 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cimes" and "comtés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs cimes". 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 #122,790 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