faîtevsfeinteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,026
“faîte” frequency rank
#22,856
“feinte” frequency rank
53882
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature faîte feinte
Definition Comble, partie la plus élevée d’un bâtiment, d’un édifice. Action de feindre.

Where the eye mixes faîte and feinte

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

5 ch
faîte
6 ch
feinte

Why the eye confuses faîte with feinte

A purely visual mix-up. faîte (\fɛt\) and feinte (\fɛ̃t\) 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 53882, 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\. feinte is at rank #22,856, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɛ̃t\.

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 53882, this pair ranks #137,798 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of faîte vs feinte

Shared letters: eft. Private to "faîte": . Private to "feinte": in.

"faîte" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "feinte" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feinteefinte · feinet · feinnte · feintte · feitne · fenite · ffeinte · fiente

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "faîte" for "feinte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\fɛt\ versus \fɛ̃t\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "faîte" or "feinte"?
"feinte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,856 in our French list, against #31,026 for "faîte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "faîte" and "feinte" 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 "feinte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #137,798 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "faîte" and "feinte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faîte vs fange". 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 #137,798 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