jetéevsjetonTell them apart

Which to use

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

#13,823
“jetée” frequency rank
#32,871
“jeton” frequency rank
46694
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jetée jeton
Definition Amas de pierres, de cailloux et d’autres matériaux jetés à côté du canal qui forme l’entrée d’un port, fortement maçonnés et ordinairement soutenus de pilotis, pour servir à rompre l’impétuosité des vagues. Pièce de métal, d’ivoire, etc., plate et ordinairement ronde, dont on se servait autrefois pour calculer des sommes, et dont on se sert encore pour marquer et payer au jeu.

Where the eye mixes jetée and jeton

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. jetée (CVCVV) and jeton (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
jetée
5 ch
jeton

Look-alike desk: jetée vs jeton

A purely visual mix-up. jetée (\ʒə.te\) and jeton (\ʒə.tɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46694, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jetée is recorded at frequency rank #13,823, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒə.te\. jeton is at rank #32,871, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒə.tɔ̃\.

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 46694, this pair ranks #192,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of jetée vs jeton

Shared letters: ejt. Private to "jetée": é. Private to "jeton": no.

"jetée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "jeton" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jeton ← ejton · jeotn · jetno · jetonn · jetton · jjeton · jteon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "jetée" for "jeton" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʒə.te\ versus \ʒə.tɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "jetée" or "jeton" show up more?
"jetée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,823 in our French list, against #32,871 for "jeton". 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 "jetée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "jeton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jetée" and "jeton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jalon vs jeton". 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 #192,876 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