cortevscrotteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#27,386
“corte” frequency rank
#22,221
“crotte” frequency rank
49607
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature corte crotte
Definition Cour. Fiente, en forme de boulettes, de certains animaux.

Where the eye mixes corte and crotte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. corte runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against crotte's 6 (CCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
corte
6 ch
crotte

Visual trap between corte and crotte

A purely visual mix-up. corte (\ˈkɔr.te\) and crotte (\kʁɔt\) 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 49607, 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\. crotte is at rank #22,221, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɔt\.

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 49607, this pair ranks #169,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of corte vs crotte

Shared letters: ceort. Private to "corte": -. Private to "crotte": -.

"corte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "crotte" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • corte ← ccorte · coret · corrte · cotre · ocrte
  • crotte ← ccrotte · cortte · crote · crotet · crrotte · crtote · rcotte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "corte" and "crotte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈkɔr.te\ versus \kʁɔt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "corte" or "crotte"?
"crotte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,221 in our French list, against #27,386 for "corte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "corte" and "crotte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "corte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crotte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #169,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "corte" and "crotte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conde vs corte". 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 #169,259 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