quivsquiteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#22
“qui” frequency rank
#49,886
“quite” frequency rank
49908
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature qui quite
Definition Lequel, laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles. Passe de cape destinée à éloigner le taureau de l’endroit où il pourrait blesser un torero.

Letter map: qui vs quite

Shared letters muted; letters that set qui and quite apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. qui runs 3 letters (CVV) against quite's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
qui
5 ch
quite

Grammar separator: qui vs quite

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: qui is apronoun and quiteanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “qui” sits inside “quite”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49908, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

qui is recorded at frequency rank #22, classified as apron, pronounced \ki\. 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 49908, this pair ranks #166,899 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of qui vs quite

Shared letters: iqu. Private to "qui": -. Private to "quite": et.

"qui" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "quite" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • quite ← qiute · qquite · quiet · qutie · uqite

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "qui" for "quite" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "qui" is a pronoun and "quite" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "qui" or "quite" show up more?
"qui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22 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.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "qui" and "quite".

  • Full dictionary entry for "qui" 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 #166,899 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "qui" 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 #166,899 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