citéesvscotéesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#13,541
“citées” frequency rank
#23,817
“cotées” frequency rank
37358
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature citées cotées
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe citer. Féminin pluriel de coté.

Where the eye mixes citées and cotées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. citées and cotées follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
citées
6 ch
cotées

Look-alike desk: citées vs cotées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: citées is \si.te\ while cotées is \kɔ.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - i in “citées” becomes o in “cotées”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37358, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

citées is recorded at frequency rank #13,541, classified as averb, pronounced \si.te\. cotées is at rank #23,817, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ.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 37358, this pair ranks #263,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of citées vs cotées

Shared letters: cesté. Private to "citées": i. Private to "cotées": o.

"citées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "cotées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "citées" and "cotées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "citées" is a verb and "cotées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "citées" vs "cotées" - which ranks higher?
"citées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,541 in our French list, against #23,817 for "cotées". 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 "citées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cotées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #263,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "citées" and "cotées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "comptées vs cotées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #263,033 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