ditesvsdotéeConfusable pair

Quick tell: dites is a verb, dotée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dites” is a verb and “dotée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,409
“dites” frequency rank
#8,986
“dotée” frequency rank
10395
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dites dotée
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe dire. Féminin singulier de doté.

Where the eye mixes dites and dotée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
dites
5 ch
dotée

Look-alike desk: dites vs dotée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dites is \dit\ while dotée is \dɔ.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10395, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dites is recorded at frequency rank #1,409, classified as averb, pronounced \dit\. dotée is at rank #8,986, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dɔ.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 10395, this pair ranks #413,149 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dites vs dotée

Shared letters: det. Private to "dites": is. Private to "dotée": .

"dites" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "dotée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ditesddites · diets · ditess · ditse · dittes · dties · idtes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dites" for "dotée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dites" is a verb and "dotée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dites" or "dotée" show up more?
"dites" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,409 in our French list, against #8,986 for "dotée". 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 "dites" and "dotée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dites" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dotée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,149 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dites" and "dotée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dotée vs douées". 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 #413,149 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