Which to use
“goutte” and “gouttes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,398
- “goutte” frequency rank
- #9,011
- “gouttes” frequency rank
- 15409
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | goutte | gouttes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Très petite quantité d’un liquide qui se détache avec une forme sphérique. | Pluriel de goutte. |
Same sound, different letters: goutte vs gouttes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. goutte runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against gouttes's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - goutte and gouttes
This is the hard kind. goutte and gouttes are pronounced identically (\ɡut\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “goutte” sits inside “gouttes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15409, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
goutte is recorded at frequency rank #6,398, classified as anoun, 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 15409, this pair ranks #392,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of goutte vs gouttes
Shared letters: egotu. Private to "goutte": -. Private to "gouttes": s.
"goutte" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "gouttes" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "goutte" for "gouttes" ever safe?
Frequency check: "goutte" vs "gouttes" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
"goutte" and "gouttes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "goutte" 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 #392,480 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "goutte" and "gouttes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "goûtez vs gouttes". 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 #392,480 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.