quatrevsquiteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: quatre is a adjective, quite is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“quatre” is an adjective and “quite” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#320
“quatre” frequency rank
#49,886
“quite” frequency rank
50206
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature quatre quite
Definition Trois plus un, adjectif numéral cardinal correspondant au nombre 4. Passe de cape destinée à éloigner le taureau de l’endroit où il pourrait blesser un torero.

Letter map: quatre vs quite

Shared letters muted; letters that set quatre and quite apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. quatre runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against quite's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
quatre
5 ch
quite

Grammar separator: quatre vs quite

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: quatre is anadjective and quiteanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50206, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

quatre is recorded at frequency rank #320, classified as anadj, pronounced \katʁ\. quite is at rank #49,886, tagged as anoun.

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 50206, this pair ranks #164,460 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of quatre vs quite

Shared letters: eqtu. Private to "quatre": ar. Private to "quite": i.

"quatre" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "quite" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • quatre ← qautre · qquatre · quarte · quater · quatrre · quattre · qutare · uqatre
  • quite ← qiute · qquite · quiet · qutie · uqite

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "quatre" for "quite" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "quatre" is an adjective and "quite" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "quatre" vs "quite" - which ranks higher?
"quatre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #320 in our French list, against #49,886 for "quite". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "quatre" and "quite". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "quatre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "quite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #164,460 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "quatre" and "quite" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "quite vs quot". 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 #164,460 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