goûtevsgouttesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#16,632
“goûte” frequency rank
#9,011
“gouttes” frequency rank
25643
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature goûte gouttes
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de goûter. Pluriel de goutte.

Same sound, different letters: goûte vs gouttes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. goûte runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against gouttes's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
goûte
7 ch
gouttes

Same sound, different spelling - goûte / gouttes

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: goûte and gouttes carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɡut\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25643, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

goûte is recorded at frequency rank #16,632, classified as averb, pronounced \ɡut\. gouttes is at rank #9,011, tagged as anoun, 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 25643, this pair ranks #339,682 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of goûte vs gouttes

Shared letters: egot. Private to "goûte": û. Private to "gouttes": su.

"goûte" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "gouttes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gouttes ← ggouttes · gotutes · goutes · goutets · gouttess · gouttse · guottes · oguttes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "goûte" for "gouttes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "goûte" is a verb and "gouttes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "goûte" vs "gouttes" - which ranks higher?
"gouttes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,011 in our French list, against #16,632 for "goûte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "goûte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gouttes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #339,682 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "goûte" and "gouttes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glue vs goûte". 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 #339,682 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