cottevscuteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cotte is a noun, cute is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cotte” is a noun and “cute” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,365
“cotte” frequency rank
#23,165
“cute” frequency rank
66530
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cotte cute
Definition Jupe. Mignon.

Where the eye mixes cotte and cute

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

5 ch
cotte
4 ch
cute

Look-alike desk: cotte vs cute

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cotte is \kɔt\ while cute is \kjut\. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66530, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cotte is recorded at frequency rank #43,365, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔt\. 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 66530, this pair ranks #67,421 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cotte vs cute

Shared letters: cet. Private to "cotte": o. Private to "cute": u.

"cotte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cute" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cotte ← ccotte · cotet · ctote · octte
  • cute ← ccute · ctue · cuet · cutte · ucte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cotte" and "cute" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cotte" is a noun and "cute" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cotte" vs "cute" - which ranks higher?
"cute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,165 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cotte" 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 #67,421 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cotte" and "cute" 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 #67,421 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