comitévscourteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: comité is a noun, courte is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“comité” is a noun and “courte” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,088
“comité” frequency rank
#2,468
“courte” frequency rank
3556
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comité courte
Definition Réunion de personnes commises par un groupement (assemblée, société, syndicat, etc.) pour l’examen et la préparation de certaines affaires ou pour assurer la marche de toutes les affaires concernant ce groupement. Féminin singulier de court.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set comité and courte apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
comité
6 ch
courte

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: comité is \kɔ.mi.te\ while courte is \kuʁt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comité is recorded at frequency rank #1,088, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.mi.te\. courte is at rank #2,468, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kuʁt\.

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 3556, this pair ranks #433,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of comité vs courte

Shared letters: cot. Private to "comité": imé. Private to "courte": eru.

"comité" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "courte" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • courteccourte · corute · couret · courrte · courtte · coutre · cuorte · ocurte

Frequency comparison

comité#1,088
courte#2,468

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "comité" and "courte" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "comité" is a noun and "courte" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "comité" or "courte"?
"comité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,088 in our French list, against #2,468 for "courte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering comité vs courte

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “comité”; for an adjective, it's “courte”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “comité” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list