tapévsticeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tapé is a adjective, tice is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tapé” is an adjective and “tice” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,956
“tapé” frequency rank
#45,913
“tice” frequency rank
56869
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tapé tice
Definition Se dit particulièrement de certains fruits aplatis et séchés au four. En haut de, au sommet de (sans mouvement).

Where the eye mixes tapé and tice

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. tapé and tice follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
tapé
4 ch
tice

Why the eye confuses tapé with tice

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tapé is \ta.pe\ while tice is \ˈtiʃɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56869, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tapé is recorded at frequency rank #10,956, classified as anadj, pronounced \ta.pe\. tice is at rank #45,913, tagged as aprep, pronounced \ˈtiʃɛ\.

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 56869, this pair ranks #118,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tapé vs tice

Shared letters: t. Private to "tapé": apé. Private to "tice": cei.

"tapé" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tice ← itce · tcie · ticce · tiec · ttice

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tapé" for "tice" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tapé" is an adjective and "tice" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tapé" vs "tice" - which ranks higher?
"tapé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,956 in our French list, against #45,913 for "tice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tapé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tice" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #118,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tapé" and "tice" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tice vs tif". 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 #118,427 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