Which to use
“open” is an adjective and “ôté” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,628
- “open” frequency rank
- #31,318
- “ôté” frequency rank
- 34946
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | open | ôté |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ouvert (d’esprit). | Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe ôter. |
Where the eye mixes open and ôté
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. No shared run - shape, not overlap, is the trap.
Visual trap between open and ôté
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: open is \ɔ.pœn\ while ôté is \o.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34946, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
open is recorded at frequency rank #3,628, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.pœn\. ôté is at rank #31,318, tagged as averb, pronounced \o.te\.
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 34946, this pair ranks #280,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of open vs ôté
Shared letters: none. Private to "open": enop. Private to "ôté": téô.
"open" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "ôté" · 3 letters · shape VCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- open ← oepn · openn · opne · oppen · poen
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "open" for "ôté" ever safe?
Frequency check: "open" vs "ôté" - which ranks higher?
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 "open" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ôté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #280,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "open" and "ôté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "och vs ôté". 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 #280,259 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.