Which to use
“ôté” is a verb and “outré” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #31,318
- “ôté” frequency rank
- #25,424
- “outré” frequency rank
- 56742
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ôté | outré |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe ôter. | Qui est excessif, exagéré, qui passe les bornes prescrites par la raison. |
Where the eye mixes ôté and outré
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. ôté runs 3 letters (VCV) against outré's 5 (VVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between ôté and outré
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ôté is \o.te\ while outré is \u.tʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ôté is recorded at frequency rank #31,318, classified as averb, pronounced \o.te\. outré is at rank #25,424, tagged as anadj, pronounced \u.tʁe\.
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 56742, this pair ranks #119,195 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of ôté vs outré
Shared letters: té. Private to "ôté": ô. Private to "outré": oru.
"ôté" · 3 letters · shape VCV · "outré" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "ôté" and "outré" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "ôté" or "outré" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "ôté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "outré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #119,195 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ôté" and "outré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "och vs ôté". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #119,195 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.