coffeevscorvéeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,521
“coffee” frequency rank
#21,583
“corvée” frequency rank
44104
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coffee corvée
Definition Café. Travail et service gratuit qui était dû par le paysan à son seigneur.

Where the eye mixes coffee and corvée

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

6 ch
coffee
6 ch
corvée

Visual trap between coffee and corvée

A purely visual mix-up. coffee (\ˈkɔ.fi\) and corvée (\kɔʁ.ve\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44104, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coffee is recorded at frequency rank #22,521, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɔ.fi\. corvée is at rank #21,583, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁ.ve\.

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 44104, this pair ranks #213,036 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of coffee vs corvée

Shared letters: ceo. Private to "coffee": f. Private to "corvée": rvé.

"coffee" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "corvée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • coffeeccoffee · cfofee · cofee · cofefe · coffe · ocffee

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "coffee" and "corvée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈkɔ.fi\ versus \kɔʁ.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "coffee" or "corvée"?
"corvée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,583 in our French list, against #22,521 for "coffee". 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 "coffee" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "corvée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #213,036 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coffee" and "corvée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coffee vs copiée". 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 #213,036 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