Which to use
“letter” and “lettre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,407
- “letter” frequency rank
- #1,002
- “lettre” frequency rank
- 38409
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | letter | lettre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lettre, caractère. | Chacun des caractères d’un alphabet représentant un son, voyelle ou consonne. |
Where the eye mixes letter and lettre
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. letter (CVCCVC) and lettre (CVCCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: letter vs lettre
A purely visual mix-up. letter (\ˈlɛt.ə(ɹ)\) and lettre (\lɛtʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (er ↔ re) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38409, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
letter is recorded at frequency rank #37,407, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈlɛt.ə(ɹ)\. lettre is at rank #1,002, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɛtʁ\.
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 38409, this pair ranks #255,443 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of letter vs lettre
Shared letters: elrt. Private to "letter": -. Private to "lettre": -.
"letter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "lettre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "letter" and "lettre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "letter" or "lettre" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "letter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lettre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #255,443 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "letter" and "lettre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leste vs letter". 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 #255,443 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.