cortevscotteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#27,386
“corte” frequency rank
#43,365
“cotte” frequency rank
70751
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature corte cotte
Definition Cour. Jupe.

Where the eye mixes corte and cotte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. corte and cotte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
corte
5 ch
cotte

Look-alike desk: corte vs cotte

A purely visual mix-up. corte (\ˈkɔr.te\) and cotte (\kɔt\) 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 a single letter - r in “corte” becomes t in “cotte”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70751, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

corte is recorded at frequency rank #27,386, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɔr.te\. cotte is at rank #43,365, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔt\.

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 70751, this pair ranks #50,161 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of corte vs cotte

Shared letters: ceot. Private to "corte": r. Private to "cotte": -.

"corte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cotte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • corte ← ccorte · coret · corrte · cotre · ocrte
  • cotte ← ccotte · cotet · ctote · octte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "corte" and "cotte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈkɔr.te\ versus \kɔt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "corte" vs "cotte" - which ranks higher?
"corte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,386 in our French list, against #43,365 for "cotte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "corte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cotte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,161 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "corte" and "cotte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Cosette vs cotte". 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 #50,161 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