stadevsstarkTell them apart

Quick tell: stade is a noun, stark is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,191
“stade” frequency rank
#18,328
“stark” frequency rank
19519
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stade stark
Definition Mesure de longueur valant à peu près 180 mètres. Fort, puissant.

Where the eye mixes stade and stark

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
stade
5 ch
stark

Look-alike desk: stade vs stark

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: stade is \stad\ while stark is \ʃtaʁk\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stade is recorded at frequency rank #1,191, classified as anoun, pronounced \stad\. stark is at rank #18,328, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʃtaʁk\.

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 19519, this pair ranks #372,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of stade vs stark

Shared letters: ast. Private to "stade": de. Private to "stark": kr.

"stade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stark" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stadesatde · sstade · stadde · staed · stdae · sttade · tsade
  • starksatrk · sstark · stakr · starkk · starrk · strak · sttark · tsark

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "stade" and "stark" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "stade" is a noun and "stark" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "stade" vs "stark" - which ranks higher?
"stade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,191 in our French list, against #18,328 for "stark". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stark" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #372,864 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stade" and "stark" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stark vs stase". 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 #372,864 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