gobevsgoûteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: gobe is a noun, goûte is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gobe” is a noun and “goûte” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,359
“gobe” frequency rank
#16,632
“goûte” frequency rank
63991
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gobe goûte
Definition Variante orthographique de gobbe. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de goûter.

Where the eye mixes gobe and goûte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. gobe runs 4 letters (CVCV) against goûte's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
gobe
5 ch
goûte

Why the eye confuses gobe with goûte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gobe is \ɡɔb\ while goûte is \ɡut\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63991, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gobe is recorded at frequency rank #47,359, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔb\. goûte is at rank #16,632, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɡut\.

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 63991, this pair ranks #79,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gobe vs goûte

Shared letters: ego. Private to "gobe": b. Private to "goûte": tû.

"gobe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "goûte" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gobe ← gboe · ggobe · gobbe · goeb · ogbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gobe" and "goûte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gobe" is a noun and "goûte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "gobe" or "goûte" show up more?
"goûte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,632 in our French list, against #47,359 for "gobe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gobe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "goûte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gobe" and "goûte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glue vs gobe". 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 #79,221 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