condevscôteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,566
“conde” frequency rank
#1,288
“côte” frequency rank
50854
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature conde côte
Definition Comte. Chacun des os qui forment la cage thoracique.

Where the eye mixes conde and côte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. conde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against côte's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
conde
4 ch
côte

Look-alike desk: conde vs côte

A purely visual mix-up. conde (\ˈko̞n.de̞\) and côte (\kot\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50854, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

conde is recorded at frequency rank #49,566, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈko̞n.de̞\. côte is at rank #1,288, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kot\.

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 50854, this pair ranks #159,419 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of conde vs côte

Shared letters: ce. Private to "conde": dno. Private to "côte": tô.

"conde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "côte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • conde ← cconde · cnode · codne · condde · coned · connde · ocnde

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "conde" for "côte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈko̞n.de̞\ versus \kot\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "conde" vs "côte" - which ranks higher?
"côte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,288 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "conde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "côte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #159,419 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "conde" and "côte" 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 #159,419 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