joutevsjoutesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,569
“joute” frequency rank
#31,570
“joutes” frequency rank
63139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature joute joutes
Definition Combat à cheval d'homme à homme avec la lance. Pluriel de joute.

Same sound, different letters: joute vs joutes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. joute runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against joutes's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
joute
6 ch
joutes

Homophone desk: joute vs joutes

This is the hard kind. joute and joutes are pronounced identically (\ʒut\) 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) - “joute” sits inside “joutes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

joute is recorded at frequency rank #31,569, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒut\. joutes is at rank #31,570, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒut\.

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 63139, this pair ranks #83,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of joute vs joutes

Shared letters: ejotu. Private to "joute": -. Private to "joutes": s.

"joute" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "joutes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • joute ← jjoute · jotue · joutte · juote · ojute
  • joutes ← jjoutes · jotues · joutess · joutse · jouttes · juotes · ojutes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "joute" and "joutes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʒut\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "joute" vs "joutes" - which ranks higher?
"joute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,569 in our French list, against #31,570 for "joutes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"joute" and "joutes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "joute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "joutes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #83,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "joute" and "joutes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Josie vs joute". 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 #83,546 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