cornevscôteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,941
“corne” frequency rank
#1,288
“côte” frequency rank
14229
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature corne côte
Definition Excroissance dure qui pousse sur le front des ruminants, sur le nez du rhinocéros. Chacun des os qui forment la cage thoracique.

Where the eye mixes corne and côte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
corne
4 ch
côte

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. corne (\kɔʁn\) 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 14229, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

corne is recorded at frequency rank #12,941, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁn\. 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 14229, this pair ranks #397,587 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of corne vs côte

Shared letters: ce. Private to "corne": nor. Private to "côte": .

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • corneccorne · conre · coren · cornne · corrne · crone · ocrne

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "corne" and "côte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kɔʁn\ versus \kot\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "corne" or "côte"?
"côte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,288 in our French list, against #12,941 for "corne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "corne" and "côte". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "corne" 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 #397,587 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "corne" and "côte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conde vs corne". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list