Which to use
“patte” and “prêté” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,206
- “patte” frequency rank
- #6,129
- “prêté” frequency rank
- 16335
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | patte | prêté |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Membre d’un animal quadrupède, d’un oiseau (à l’exception des oiseaux de proie), des arthropodes comme l’écrevisse, le homard, l’araignée, la mouche, etc. | Objet d'un prêt. |
Where the eye mixes patte and prêté
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between patte and prêté
A purely visual mix-up. patte (\pat\) and prêté (\pʁɛ.te\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16335, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
patte is recorded at frequency rank #10,206, classified as anoun, pronounced \pat\. prêté is at rank #6,129, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁɛ.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 16335, this pair ranks #388,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of patte vs prêté
Shared letters: pt. Private to "patte": ae. Private to "prêté": réê.
"patte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "prêté" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- patte ← aptte · patet · ppatte · ptate
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "patte" and "prêté" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "patte" or "prêté" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "patte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "prêté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #388,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "patte" and "prêté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pactes vs patte". 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 #388,299 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.