citéevsCoréeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: citée is a verb, Corée is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“citée” is a verb and “Corée” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,448
“citée” frequency rank
#3,062
“Corée” frequency rank
12510
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature citée Corée
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe citer. Péninsule montagneuse d’Asie de l’Est, dont une des villes importantes est Séoul. Elle est bordée au nord par la Mandchourie, à l’est par la mer du Japon, et à l’ouest par la mer Jaune.

Where the eye mixes citée and Corée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. citée and Corée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
citée
5 ch
Corée

Look-alike desk: citée vs Corée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: citée is \si.te\ while Corée is \kɔ.ʁe\. 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 name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

citée is recorded at frequency rank #9,448, classified as averb, pronounced \si.te\. Corée is at rank #3,062, tagged as aname, pronounced \kɔ.ʁe\.

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 12510, this pair ranks #404,980 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of citée vs Corée

Shared letters: ceé. Private to "citée": it. Private to "Corée": or.

"citée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "Corée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "citée" and "Corée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "citée" is a verb and "Corée" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "citée" or "Corée" show up more?
"Corée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,062 in our French list, against #9,448 for "citée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "citée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Corée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #404,980 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "citée" and "Corée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "calée vs citée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #404,980 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