comtevscondeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,947
“comte” frequency rank
#49,566
“conde” frequency rank
51513
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature comte conde
Definition Dignitaire des derniers temps de l’empire romain et du bas-empire. Comte.

Where the eye mixes comte and conde

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

5 ch
comte
5 ch
conde

Visual trap between comte and conde

A purely visual mix-up. comte (\kɔ̃t\) and conde (\ˈko̞n.de̞\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51513, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

comte is recorded at frequency rank #1,947, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃t\. conde is at rank #49,566, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈko̞n.de̞\.

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 51513, this pair ranks #154,460 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of comte vs conde

Shared letters: ceo. Private to "comte": mt. Private to "conde": dn.

"comte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "conde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • comte ← ccomte · cmote · comet · commte · comtte · cotme · ocmte
  • conde ← cconde · cnode · codne · condde · coned · connde · ocnde

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "comte" for "conde" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ̃t\ versus \ˈko̞n.de̞\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "comte" or "conde" show up more?
"comte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,947 in our French list, against #49,566 for "conde". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "comte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "conde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #154,460 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "comte" and "conde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CNE vs conde". 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 #154,460 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