écartévsépatéWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#11,691
“écarté” frequency rank
#42,132
“épaté” frequency rank
53823
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écarté épaté
Definition Jeu de cartes qui se joue à deux et où l’on peut écarter tout ou partie des cartes. Qui est aplati, écrasé.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set écarté and épaté apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
écarté
5 ch
épaté

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: écarté is \e.kaʁ.te\ while épaté is \e.pa.te\. 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 53823, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écarté is recorded at frequency rank #11,691, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kaʁ.te\. épaté is at rank #42,132, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.pa.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 53823, this pair ranks #138,132 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of écarté vs épaté

Shared letters: até. Private to "écarté": cr. Private to "épaté": p.

"écarté" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "épaté" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Frequency comparison

écarté#11,691
épaté#42,132

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "écarté" and "épaté" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "écarté" is a noun and "épaté" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "écarté" or "épaté"?
"écarté" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,691 in our French list, against #42,132 for "épaté". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering écarté vs épaté

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “écarté”; for an adjective, it's “épaté”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “écarté” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list