Which to use
“dictée” is a noun and “dicter” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #19,806
- “dictée” frequency rank
- #20,113
- “dicter” frequency rank
- 39919
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dictée | dicter |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de dicter. | Prononcer plus ou moins lentement et à haute voix ce qu'on fait écrire au fur et à mesure par quelqu'un. |
Same sound, different letters: dictée vs dicter
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - dictée / dicter
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: dictée and dicter carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dik.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39919, 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\. dicter is at rank #20,113, tagged as averb, 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 39919, this pair ranks #244,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dictée vs dicter
Shared letters: cdeit. Private to "dictée": é. Private to "dicter": r.
"dictée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "dicter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dicter ← dciter · ddicter · diccter · dicetr · dicterr · dictre · dictter · ditcer
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dictée" for "dicter" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "dictée" or "dicter" show up more?
After this comparison
"dictée" and "dicter" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "dictée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dicter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #244,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dictée" and "dicter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dictent vs dicter". 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 #244,380 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.