Which to use
“raté” and “ratées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,217
- “raté” frequency rank
- #37,024
- “ratées” frequency rank
- 40241
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | raté | ratées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui a raté, qui a échoué, qui n’a pas atteint son but. | Féminin pluriel de raté. |
Same sound, different letters: raté vs ratées
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. raté runs 4 letters (CVCV) against ratées's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - raté and ratées
This is the hard kind. raté and ratées are pronounced identically (\ʁa.te\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “raté” sits inside “ratées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
raté is recorded at frequency rank #3,217, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁa.te\. ratées is at rank #37,024, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʁa.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 40241, this pair ranks #241,967 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of raté vs ratées
Shared letters: arté. Private to "raté": -. Private to "ratées": es.
"raté" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "ratées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "raté" for "ratées" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "raté" or "ratées" show up more?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "raté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ratées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #241,967 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "raté" and "ratées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "râles vs ratées". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #241,967 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.