cotéevscuteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,815
“cotée” frequency rank
#23,165
“cute” frequency rank
45980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cotée cute
Definition Féminin singulier de coté. Mignon.

Where the eye mixes cotée and cute

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cotée runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against cute's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
cotée
4 ch
cute

Why the eye confuses cotée with cute

A purely visual mix-up. cotée (\kɔ.te\) and cute (\kjut\) 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 45980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cotée is recorded at frequency rank #22,815, classified as anadj, pronounced \kɔ.te\. cute is at rank #23,165, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kjut\.

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 45980, this pair ranks #198,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cotée vs cute

Shared letters: cet. Private to "cotée": oé. Private to "cute": u.

"cotée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "cute" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cute ← ccute · ctue · cuet · cutte · ucte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cotée" and "cute" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.te\ versus \kjut\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cotée" vs "cute" - which ranks higher?
"cotée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,815 in our French list, against #23,165 for "cute". 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 "cotée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #198,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cotée" and "cute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cute". 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 #198,579 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