flottaitvsfoutaitTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,768
“flottait” frequency rank
#22,275
“foutait” frequency rank
63043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature flottait foutait
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de flotter. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de foutre.

Where the eye mixes flottait and foutait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. flottait runs 8 letters (CCVCCVVC) against foutait's 7 (CVVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
flottait
7 ch
foutait

Visual trap between flottait and foutait

A purely visual mix-up. flottait (\flo.tɛ\) and foutait (\fu.tɛ\) 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 63043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flottait is recorded at frequency rank #40,768, classified as averb, pronounced \flo.tɛ\. foutait is at rank #22,275, tagged as averb, pronounced \fu.tɛ\.

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 63043, this pair ranks #83,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of flottait vs foutait

Shared letters: afiot. Private to "flottait": l. Private to "foutait": u.

"flottait" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVVC  ·  "foutait" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flottait ← fflottait · fllottait · flotait · flotatit · flottaitt · flottati · flottiat · fltotait
  • foutait ← ffoutait · fotuait · fouatit · foutaitt · foutati · foutiat · fouttait · fuotait

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "flottait" for "foutait" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\flo.tɛ\ versus \fu.tɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "flottait" or "foutait"?
"foutait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,275 in our French list, against #40,768 for "flottait". 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 "flottait" and "foutait" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "flottait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "foutait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #83,977 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "flottait" and "foutait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flottait vs frottant". 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 #83,977 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