contvscoûteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cont is a noun, coûte is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cont” is a noun and “coûte” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,949
“cont” frequency rank
#2,915
“coûte” frequency rank
47864
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cont coûte
Definition Compte. Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de coûter.

Where the eye mixes cont and coûte

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

4 ch
cont
5 ch
coûte

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cont is \ˈkont\ while coûte is \kut\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cont is recorded at frequency rank #44,949, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈkont\. coûte is at rank #2,915, tagged as averb, pronounced \kut\.

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 47864, this pair ranks #183,547 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cont vs coûte

Shared letters: cot. Private to "cont": n. Private to "coûte": .

"cont" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "coûte" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contccont · cnot · connt · contt · cotn · ocnt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cont" and "coûte" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cont" is a noun and "coûte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cont" or "coûte"?
"coûte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,915 in our French list, against #44,949 for "cont". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list