Which to use
“faîte” and “fate” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #31,026
- “faîte” frequency rank
- #39,294
- “fate” frequency rank
- 70320
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | faîte | fate |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Comble, partie la plus élevée d’un bâtiment, d’un édifice. | Celle qui est contente d’elle-même et qui le laisse voir. |
Where the eye mixes faîte and fate
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between faîte and fate
A purely visual mix-up. faîte (\fɛt\) and fate (\fat\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
faîte is recorded at frequency rank #31,026, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɛt\. fate is at rank #39,294, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fat\.
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 70320, this pair ranks #51,753 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of faîte vs fate
Shared letters: aeft. Private to "faîte": î. Private to "fate": -.
"faîte" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "fate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- fate ← afte · fatte · ffate · ftae
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "faîte" for "fate" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "faîte" or "fate" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "faîte" and "fate" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "faîte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #51,753 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "faîte" and "fate" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fate vs Fee". 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 #51,753 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.