flottevsfonteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,920
“flotte” frequency rank
#8,855
“fonte” frequency rank
12775
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature flotte fonte
Definition Ensemble de navires, marine. Action de fondre, ou de se fondre, de se liquéfier.

Where the eye mixes flotte and fonte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. flotte runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against fonte's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
flotte
5 ch
fonte

Look-alike desk: flotte vs fonte

A purely visual mix-up. flotte (\flɔt\) and fonte (\fɔ̃t\) 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 12775, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flotte is recorded at frequency rank #3,920, classified as anoun, pronounced \flɔt\. fonte is at rank #8,855, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔ̃t\.

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 12775, this pair ranks #403,823 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of flotte vs fonte

Shared letters: efot. Private to "flotte": l. Private to "fonte": n.

"flotte" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "fonte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flottefflotte · fllotte · flote · flotet · fltote · foltte · lfotte
  • fonteffonte · fnote · fonet · fonnte · fontte · fotne · ofnte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "flotte" and "fonte" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\flɔt\ versus \fɔ̃t\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "flotte" or "fonte"?
"flotte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,920 in our French list, against #8,855 for "fonte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "flotte" and "fonte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "flotte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fonte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #403,823 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "flotte" and "fonte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fonte vs fronce". 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 #403,823 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