écartvsécartéConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,232
“écart” frequency rank
#11,691
“écarté” frequency rank
14923
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écart écarté
Definition Action par laquelle deux parties d’une chose s’écartent plus ou moins l’une de l’autre. Jeu de cartes qui se joue à deux et où l’on peut écarter tout ou partie des cartes.

Where the eye mixes écart and écarté

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. écart runs 5 letters (VCVCC) against écarté's 6 (VCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
écart
6 ch
écarté

Visual trap between écart and écarté

A purely visual mix-up. écart (\e.kaʁ\) and écarté (\e.kaʁ.te\) 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 extra letter(s) - “écart” sits inside “écarté”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14923, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écart is recorded at frequency rank #3,232, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kaʁ\. écarté is at rank #11,691, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.kaʁ.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 14923, this pair ranks #394,637 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of écart vs écarté

Shared letters: acrté. Private to "écart": -. Private to "écarté": -.

"écart" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC  ·  "écarté" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "écart" and "écarté" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\e.kaʁ\ versus \e.kaʁ.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "écart" or "écarté"?
"écart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,232 in our French list, against #11,691 for "écarté". 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 "écart" and "écarté" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "écart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "écarté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,637 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "écart" and "écarté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "écarté vs écrie". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #394,637 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