lockevslotteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#19,583
“locke” frequency rank
#36,474
“lotte” frequency rank
56057
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature locke lotte
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe locker. Poisson de rivière, et des lacs européens, à plusieurs barbillons, appartenant aux gadiformes, de nom scientifique Lota lota.

Where the eye mixes locke and lotte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. locke and lotte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
locke
5 ch
lotte

Why the eye confuses locke with lotte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: locke is \lɔk\ while lotte is \lɔt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56057, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

locke is recorded at frequency rank #19,583, classified as averb, pronounced \lɔk\. lotte is at rank #36,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɔt\.

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 56057, this pair ranks #123,500 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of locke vs lotte

Shared letters: elo. Private to "locke": ck. Private to "lotte": t.

"locke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "lotte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • locke ← lcoke · llocke · loccke · locek · lockke · lokce · olcke
  • lotte ← llotte · lote · lotet · ltote · oltte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "locke" for "lotte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "locke" is a verb and "lotte" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "locke" or "lotte"?
"locke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,583 in our French list, against #36,474 for "lotte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "locke" and "lotte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "locke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lotte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #123,500 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "locke" and "lotte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leste vs lotte". 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 #123,500 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