Which to use
“dictée” and “dictées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,806
- “dictée” frequency rank
- #33,211
- “dictées” frequency rank
- 53017
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dictée | dictées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de dicter. | Pluriel de dictée. |
Same sound, different letters: dictée vs dictées
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. dictée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against dictées's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - dictée and dictées
This is the hard kind. dictée and dictées are pronounced identically (\dik.te\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “dictée” sits inside “dictées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53017, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dictée is recorded at frequency rank #19,806, classified as anoun, pronounced \dik.te\. dictées is at rank #33,211, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dik.te\.
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 53017, this pair ranks #143,656 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dictée vs dictées
Shared letters: cdeité. Private to "dictée": -. Private to "dictées": s.
"dictée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "dictées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dictée" and "dictées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "dictée" or "dictées" show up more?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "dictée" / "dictées". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "dictée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dictées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #143,656 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dictée" and "dictées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dictées vs dictent". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #143,656 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.