gîtevsgréWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#19,039
“gîte” frequency rank
#5,767
“gré” frequency rank
24806
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gîte gré
Definition Lieu où on habite et où on dort ordinairement. Volonté, caprice, fantaisie.

Where the eye mixes gîte and gré

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

4 ch
gîte
3 ch
gré

Look-alike desk: gîte vs gré

A purely visual mix-up. gîte (\ʒit\) and gré (\ɡʁe\) 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 24806, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gîte is recorded at frequency rank #19,039, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒit\. gré is at rank #5,767, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁe\.

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 24806, this pair ranks #344,511 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gîte vs gré

Shared letters: g. Private to "gîte": etî. Private to "gré": .

"gîte" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "gré" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gîte" for "gré" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʒit\ versus \ɡʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "gîte" or "gré" show up more?
"gré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,767 in our French list, against #19,039 for "gîte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gîte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #344,511 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gîte" and "gré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gîte vs glue". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #344,511 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