Which to use
“écoute” and “écoutes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,130
- “écoute” frequency rank
- #6,772
- “écoutes” frequency rank
- 7902
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | écoute | écoutes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action d’écouter, ou (vieilli) de faire le guet. | Pluriel de écoute. |
Same sound, different letters: écoute vs écoutes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - écoute / écoutes
This is the hard kind. écoute and écoutes are pronounced identically (\e.kut\) 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) - “écoute” sits inside “écoutes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7902, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
écoute is recorded at frequency rank #1,130, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kut\. écoutes is at rank #6,772, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.kut\.
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 7902, this pair ranks #421,775 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of écoute vs écoutes
Shared letters: ceotué. Private to "écoute": -. Private to "écoutes": s.
"écoute" · 6 letters · shape VCVVCV · "écoutes" · 7 letters · shape VCVVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "écoute" and "écoutes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "écoute" or "écoutes" show up more?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "écoute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "écoutes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #421,775 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "écoute" and "écoutes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "échoués vs écoutes". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #421,775 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.