Which to use
“octave” and “otage” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #15,698
- “octave” frequency rank
- #6,863
- “otage” frequency rank
- 22561
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | octave | otage |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Huitaine, espace de huit jours consacré, dans l’église romaine, à solenniser quelque grande fête. | Personne livrée ou prise afin de garantir des accords entre ennemis. |
Where the eye mixes octave and otage
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. octave runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against otage's 5 (VCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses octave with otage
A purely visual mix-up. octave (\ɔk.tav\) and otage (\ɔ.taʒ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
octave is recorded at frequency rank #15,698, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔk.tav\. otage is at rank #6,863, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.taʒ\.
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 22561, this pair ranks #357,324 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of octave vs otage
Shared letters: aeot. Private to "octave": cv. Private to "otage": g.
"octave" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "otage" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "octave" and "otage" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "octave" or "otage"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "octave" and "otage" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "octave" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "otage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #357,324 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "octave" and "otage" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "occase vs octave". 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 #357,324 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.